


Gray Scale

by lennoxcontrary



Series: Gray Scale [1]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Jungle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:38:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 71,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3227807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lennoxcontrary/pseuds/lennoxcontrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Reynosas come after Gibbs, the team is forced into dark territory.</p><p>How far will Gibbs' team go to protect him, and where will it lead them? An AU featuring confused agents, mean Feds, and really mean bad guys who do mean bad things. Gratuitous use of favorite recurring characters along with the development of OC characters. The story takes off at the end of Season 7.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gibbs Is Gone

**Author's Note:**

> An attempt to finish up something I started over at fanfic.net.
> 
> Be warned for swearing and occasional references to rape in a style similar to the show - not graphic.

****

_**Abby:**   Well. That's kind of a gray area. _

_**Gibbs:**   How gray? _

_**Abby:**   Charcoal. _

_– From_ "The Truth Is Out There"

**x**

**Chapter One: Gibbs Is Gone**

Ziva had been in many _interesting_ situations. 

This really shouldn't count as one of them.

She was sitting at her desk in the Navy Yard—a complex bristling with the sort of security she usually found reassuring. At the moment, she faced down nothing more exciting than a dusty pile of paperwork. And yet she had never, ever felt so hinky. 

It was Gibbs. He hadn't said a word the entire morning. Not a monosyllabic mutter to the team's morning greetings. Not a grunt to the mail delivery lady. Not even a "going for coffee" growl on the way to the break room. 

He looked the same as he always did. Calm. Confident. Dangerous. Just . . . quiet. She studied him closely, but his behavior gave away nothing. Gibbs was good at that-then, Gibbs was good at many things, and Ziva should know. She'd compiled a dossier on the man for Mossad, months before she ever met him. Now, five years on, her stomach churned with all the growly, defensive hinkiness that a post-Mossad, Gibbs-trained gut could muster, and she was reminded of that dossier. Ironically, Ziva never mentioned the one thing Gibbs was best at in that old profile. The reason, simply, was that she hadn't known. Hadn't realized, at the time. These days she knew better. If she had to pick the one thing Gibbs was best at . . . It was secrets. Keeping them, if they were his own. Revealing them, if he happened to want to know what _you_ were hiding. Gibbs, needless to say, did not _hide_ anything. When you knew what to look for it was painfully obvious that the secrets were there. On days like this they were the rhinoceros in the room - the angry one that no one dared to look at.

He must have felt her watching him now. His refusal to hide made it all the more impressive, Ziva mused. Secrets. That was his ninja skill, the one honed so sharp you didn't even know it was there. He certainly didn't bother to mask his mood that morning. Gibbs sat at his desk and did paperwork, radiating tension all the while like a weathervane quivering in an electrical storm.

And then, at 1030, the elevator doors pinged and whooshed open. Tony had the best view of the elevator bay and his face, never a subtle instrument, went still. She turned to assess the situation. The executive consul to the Mexican ambassador and an entourage of aides stepped out of the elevator and swept past their desks.

Ziva's stomach stopped flip-flopping just long enough to sink.

Lawyers. Not the kind of enemy she was trained to fight.

The team tracked the pack of politicos as it climbed the stairs to the director's office. They moved swiftly, with an air of money and power, and she knew instantly that they were dangerous. Dark suits and influence, well beyond her control. Ziva narrowed her eyes as they were greeted on the landing by Director Vance.  _A shiver of sharks_ , she thought. English did have its moments.

Gibbs straightened his shoulders and watched the arrival just like the rest of them. But his face was blank, and when Vance's door snicked shut, Gibbs simply returned to his paperwork.

No bark at the team to get back to work. No sarcastic comments about the other careers they could pursue once he'd fired them all for lack of focus. Not even a glare. 

Ziva shared a furtive glance with McGee. Her senses were literally prickling her skin, insisting that she act. But what could she do? Ushering this particular threat out at gunpoint did not seem a viable option. So she went through the motions of updating files while Gibbs methodically cleared every last scrap of paper from his desk. When she next glanced over its surface the hairs on the back of her neck rose. His desk was empty.

Tony gave up any pretense of work to stare at Gibbs outright. A pencil twirled in his long fingers, knocking rhythmically, irritatingly against his desk, until Gibbs lifted his eyes and returned Tony's stare with his own. The pencil stilled and the seconds drew out and Gibbs just sat there, watching his senior agent in a bullpen that was suddenly much too quiet.

Tony leaned back in his chair and grinned, as if he could beat back the strangeness with the force of his smile. "Have a good weekend, Boss?"

"Yeah. I did."

Tony's grin faded a bit, wilting under the force of Gibbs' calm attention. He tilted his head toward the director's office. "Everything alright?"

"Everything is fine, Tony," Gibbs said. Abruptly he stood and walked toward the head.

Ziva and McGee watched Gibbs stride toward the mens' room from the corners of their eyes, until the moment he'd disappeared behind the door. Then they leaned toward Tony and growled. " _What is going on?_ "

"How should I know?" Tony hunched his shoulders. "He called me Tony."

McGee twisted in his chair to look up at the balcony. When he spoke his voice came out in that high-strung, computer-geek way that meant he was worried. "Any idea why the entire Mexican embassy is in Vance's office?"

No one answered him.

"They're here because of Gibbs, aren't they?"

Tony didn't say anything, but he gave Tim a look. A Gibbs look.

"Right," Tim said. "I'm really not a fan of Gibbs and, you know . . ." He trailed off for a moment. "Mexico. Gibbs plus Mexico equals _chaos_. Gibbs goes south of the border and it's like someone threw matter and antimatter into a _blender_ \- "

Tony threw his pencil at McGee's head. "McGeek! No one is following."

"Doom," McGee said helpfully. "Catastrophe. Apocalyptic - "

"Yes." Ziva leaned in, glancing between the men's room door and the director's office. "Something bad is going up."

"Something is _up_ with Gibbs," Tony sighed. "Probably the same thing _going down_ in Vance's office."

Ziva frowned. "Going down, yes. That actually makes sense."

The mens' room door swung open and Gibbs reappeared.

Not ten minutes later the elevator doors pinged again. Ziva looked up from her report in time to see her partner's face fall, and set into a loose arrangement that meant he was ready to start throwing punches. She whirled and watched five armed guards step away from the elevator. They were not guards she knew. Movement outside the director's office caught her eye. The door swung open and the consul and his aides emerged, descending the stairs en masse. Vance and the lawyers came to a halt beside the security guards, right next to Tony's desk.

Tony and Ziva rose to their feet. An awkward pause, and then -

"Director! Good morning!" Tony's grin was big and cheery, a Dinozzo special. "Looks like you've been busy today. And who are these fine folks?" His eyes drifted to a woman standing behind the director's shoulder. She had red lipstick and long black hair. His smile took on just a hint of sincerity. "Hi there."

"None of your concern, Agent Dinozzo." Vance's eyes were fixed on Gibbs. Ziva watched her mentor place his hands on his desk and push himself to his feet, moving briskly to stand before Vance. The two leaders considered each other a long moment—proud mirrors, one of the other. Finally Vance nodded, and moved aside.

Tony's eyes darted between them. "Boss?"

Gibbs paused then to look at Tony. "It's alright, Dinozzo." Voice quiet, so calm it bordered on gentle. Tony stiffened.

"Focus on the job." Gibbs gestured at the paperwork scattered across his desk. He hesitated for a second, as if he might explain. His agents leaned in.

"It's your lead now," Gibbs said. Then he stepped past Vance and walked easily toward the elevator, phalanx of guards and officials moving with him. They crowded in and the doors pinged shut, and it was done. Gibbs was gone.


	2. Dysfunctional Mutes

Vance turned on his heel and moved swiftly toward his office. He tossed a low, "You three, follow me," over his shoulder as he moved. The director double-timed it up the stairs and into this office. The agents hurrying after him moved to take up their usual spots in front of the massive desk, but Vance gestured to the conference table. "Have a seat," he said, and took a place himself at the head of the table.

The team exchanged dubious glances. Tony felt the muscles in his forehead bunching up, the mother of all tension headaches creeping up his neck.

Gibbs was not nice and Vance was not nice, and the two of them stuck to routine like Marines to their rifles. Now both of his bosses were being nice. And keeping secrets, a combination that didn't bode well at all. Tony sighed, braced for the apocalypse that he just knew was coming, and folded himself into a chair.

Vance clasped his hands on the table in front of him and looked at each of them in turn. "Gibbs has been charged with the murder of a Mexican citizen named Pedro Hernandez. Hernandez was killed years ago but new forensic evidence has come to light. At the moment Gibbs is on his way to the Mexican embassy, where he will be taken into the custody of Federales and escorted to Mexico City."

Vance paused for a moment. When it became apparent that his audience was too stunned to respond, he continued. "Occasionally an agent charged with a crime is entitled to legal counsel by an NCIS staff attorney, and that kind of arrangement automatically keeps me – and by extension you – in the loop. But the Hernandez murder predates Gibbs' tenure as an agent. And the death of a Mexican civilian certainly lies outside our jurisdiction."

Vance paused again, this time seeming to brace himself. "Fortunately, Ms. Hart has volunteered to arrange for Gibbs' defense."

The director held up a hand as all three of them opened their mouths to protest.

"Hart's record in Mexico is impressive to say the least." Vance's referee voice put down any lingering rebellion. "As I'm sure you recall she had Colonel Bell out of there almost before his feet hit the ground. She's the best shot Gibbs has at walking away from this mess, and she's promised to keep me updated on the case. I will in turn let you know of any significant developments."

The director stood from the table.

"In the meantime you all have jobs to do. Gibbs is suspended until further notice. Agent Dinozzo, you're acting team leader. Agent McGee, you are acting senior field agent. If you find you need any extra help put in a request with Cecilia for a TAD."

Vance waited for a moment but received no response. The agents just sat there, staring at him mutely. Were they too surprised to say anything? Or was this a tactic to get him to say more? A bunch of mini-Gibbs if there ever was one, he thought.

"You're dismissed," he said abruptly, and headed for his desk.

Ziva and McGee got up and walked out. Tony lingered, watching the director shuffle paper. He drifted forward to stand in front of him. "Gibbs is leaving today?"

"Flying out of Dulles this afternoon."

"And what kind of security is he going to have in Mexico?"

Vance looked up sharply. "Why, think he's gonna stage a jailbreak?" Then he grinned. "Or are you planning on busting him out, Dinozzo?"

Tony felt frustration boil up in his gut. He welcomed it – better that than worry. He always felt ridiculous when he worried about Gibbs.

"Well that's an excellent suggestion, director, but at the moment I'm more concerned with the reception he's going to get in lockup." Tony gave Vance a hard smile and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "You know, it's been awhile since I've been in the joint, but as far as I recall cops aren't winning any popularity contests in there."

Vance nodded. "Not that Gibbs wins popularity contests anywhere he goes," he sighed.

Tony noticed then that Vance might look a little tired. And was it possible that the man's suit was . . . rumpled?

"I'm pressing for as much security as I can get," Vance said. "Hart thinks the Mexicans will keep him away from the general population at least until his arraignment on Friday."

Vance studied Tony's face. "We'll do as much as we can for him. In the meantime you have a team to lead. I suggest you get to it." Vance looked back to his papers. "Gibbs knows how to look after himself."

Tony watched Vance shuffle files, not sure what to say. Because of course Gibbs knew how to look after himself. The problem was he didn't usually bother. It was Tony who looked out for Gibbs, just like Gibbs looked out for Tony.

Tony didn't say any of that, though. He just nodded and walked out.


	3. Deliberating

That night Tony, Ziva, McGee, Abby, Ducky and Palmer gathered in Gibbs' basement to get hammered. Tony got there first, almost breaking his nose on the front door when it failed to open at a twist of the knob.

Gibbs must have locked up the house that morning, before he came into work.

Just the thought of that depressed the hell out of Tony. He stood there stupidly, hand pressed against the solid oak, until Ziva came up behind him and silently jimmied the lock.

An hour later Ducky walked down the basement steps to find the entire team slouched about in the dim light of the overhead lamp. "He's gone, then?"

Ziva nodded. "His plane arrives in Mexico City at 0500."

Ducky set a bottle of scotch on the workbench and pulled a glass tumbler from his pocket. He poured himself two fingers and plopped down on a stool pulled out from a nook in the woodwork.

"To ghosts," he said, his brogue giving the words an ironic twist, and knocked it back.

McGee raised his glass and coughed as his second ever straight-up bourbon blazed a trail down his throat. He'd tried sipping the stuff at first and promptly given up – he'd rather sip unleaded.

But he sure as hell wasn't staying sober either. That first shot of Gibbs' booze still burned like jet fuel in his gut.

"So, what's the plan?" McGee prompted. "We're gonna get him back, right?"

He fixed Tony with a fuzzy, hopeful stare.

Well, it looked fuzzy to Tony, at any rate. The Dinozzos had a perfectly friendly relationship with bourbon. He was on his fourth.

"How are we going to 'get him back,' McGee," Abby demanded. She'd already confessed to the cold case she so coincidentally stumbled on in Mexico, as well as her role in the damning forensics that Gibbs faced. "He shot Hernandez and now they have the evidence, thanks to me! He's going to jail for the rest of his life." Abby buried her face in her hands. "Mexican jail," she moaned.

Tim rubbed her back sympathetically.

Tony glanced at them and away again, thinking absently that Tim would never dare to rub Abby's back like that if Gibbs were here. Abby sure wasn't protesting, though.

"Mexican jail is not a good place to be," Ziva agreed.

"Gibbs doesn't belong in any jail! Gibbs doesn't do things like this," Abby pleaded. She was looking at him uncertainly now, and Tony turned away to fiddle with a little cardboard box full of nails.

Tim leaned forward to rescue the tipping bottle from her grasp.

Abby was clearly a chugger when it came to bourbon, McGee thought, much like himself. "Maybe he didn't do it," he said. "Maybe the evidence was planted."

"He did it." Abby glanced around the room. Suddenly, deadly serious. "He told me he did it. He said my report was accurate."

Heavy stillness descended on them then – stifling and dark and just a little terrifying. Like the hood that comes before the noose.

"How?" Abby said lowly, and Tony winced at the misery in it. "How could Gibbs . . . "

Ducky put an arm around Abby's shoulders from the other side and drew her close, sandwiching the scientist between himself and McGee. "Remember that for all of his virtues, Jethro is not a perfect man, Abigail. Indeed, he has never pretended to be. When those he cares for are hurt he is ruled by his darker emotions and deals out justice as he sees fit, whether or not that is within the parameters of the law."

Ducky's voice dropped as he reached back with his freehand for the scotch on the workbench. "Or even within the parameters of a basic set of ethics," he muttered.  "Given the man is an officer sworn to uphold the law."

Abby shot him a glare at that, but it was half-hearted at best. For all that she could murder without leaving a trace of evidence, she knew in her heart she never would. She believed in justice. She believed in men like Gibbs – like the man she thought Gibbs was, anyway - making bad guys face their crimes in a court of law.

Tony huffed out a breath and began to walk around the room, running a hand over satiny sanded wood, picking up random tools to examine them. "Putting it mildly, huh Ducky? Why not just say it like it is? You go after one of Gibbs' and Gibbs is gonna kill you. Full stop. Remember what he was like after Kate? He never had any intention of bringing Ari in."

Ziva picked up the dusty bottle sitting on the bench beside her and drained the last of it into her cup.

"That was different," Abby said. "Ari was trying to kill him, to kill _us_. Hernandez wasn't a threat to Gibbs anymore. It was pure revenge, taking the law into his own hands. He puts people away all the time for doing the exact same thing!"

Tony shook his head. "And he lets people off for it too, if he can. If he decides he wants to."

"What I don't understand is the evidence," Palmer spoke up. He'd sprayed his first ever sip of bourbon all over the worktable and was the only stone-cold sober one there.

"It's about as clear as evidence gets," Abby said. "Gibbs had motive, Gibbs had the murder weapon, Gibbs had opportunity. I'll take the Marine in Mexico with the Sniper Rifle."

"Um, no." The ME assistant was distracted for a second as he watched Abby sway. Then he managed to refocus. "I mean, well, why did he leave behind any evidence?"

"It would have been a simple matter to destroy it," Ziva nodded.

"He wasn't an NCIS agent yet," McGee said. "And he was . . . it was just after his family was killed. He wouldn't have been thinking about evidence in the heat of the moment."

"Ah. Don't let your loyalty blind you to the facts, Timothy," Ducky interrupted. "This was not a crime committed in the 'heat of the moment,' as you say. Hernandez was hunted. His murder was planned."

"As a sniper Gibbs would know very well how to cover his tracks," Ziva said. "It would have been second nature to him. If he left such damning evidence behind he was either framed or he did so deliberately. But he told Abby that her report was accurate, so it seems that he was not framed," she puzzled aloud. "Which means it was deliberate. Is it possible that he wanted to be caught?"

At that they were all silent.

"I think Agent Macy figured it out, even without the ballistics," McGee finally said. "There was something weird between her and Gibbs when we went to LA, and Dean stole her notes from Camp Pendleton, from right after Hernandez was killed. When Gibbs was at Pendleton."

Tony nodded and looked at Abby. "When NCIS couldn't pursue Hernandez to Mexico, Franks gave Gibbs the information he needed to track a murderer down. Hernandez wouldn't have paid any other way. And when Macy figured out what he'd done she let him off. Because she knew he did the right thing."

Ducky closed his eyes and shook his head, wondering what Gibbs himself would have said to that declaration, if he was here. He suspected Tony would be surprised - but Ducky wasn't about to tackle it.

"Agent Macy may have given Jethro a reprieve, Anthony, but secrets have a way of coming to light, given time." The grandfatherly ME stood and picked up his coat. "And justice is a relentless mistress. Jethro knows that as well as anyone. Unfortunately this is one predicament he won't be able to shoot his way out of, and much as we all care for him, I'm afraid our varied skills aren't much help to Gibbs now. His fate is in the hands of the lawyers."

Ducky gave a final 'good heavens' shake of his head and picked up his hat. "Come along, Palmer, and drive an old man home."

As he moved toward the stairs the doctor looked sternly at the three agents and their forensics expert, all slumped about the basement in various states of inebriation. "None of you are driving anywhere tonight. Into the Morgan with me or sleep it off here, understood?"

Abby, Tim, Tony and Ziva nodded and waved him good-bye.

They talked for a bit. They were quiet too, just sharing the stillness with Gibbs' ghosts. By the time the first pale rays of sun streaked through the windows they'd finished every last drop of the boss's bourbon.

Abby watched Tony and Ziva tilt into each other, shoulders propped together, snuffling softly in sleep. The two of them looked almost as young as she usually did. Her eyes wandered to the center of the cement floor, where Gibbs had hugged her just a few days ago and refused to say he hadn't done it.

"Do you think he wanted to get caught, McGee?"

"I don't know, Abby," Tim sighed. And then slowly, "Maybe. Yeah."

Abby turned her face into his shoulder. "Me too," she whispered. _Just not by me._


	4. A Situation in Mexico

 

 

 

Hart told them to expect the results of the arraignment late in the afternoon on Friday. That week Vance sent the team a flurry of petty crimes, just to keep them out of his hair.

Right after 1200 on Friday Tony's phone rang, the display showing Vance's extension. He blinked, thinking it was too early, but braced himself and picked it up. "Dinozzo," Vance said, "get your team up here."

Tony twitched, the slam of Vance's receiver carrying through the line. Then he was moving. "Director's office," he called, sweeping out from behind his desk.

"It's too early, he couldn't have been arraigned yet." Ziva paced him up the stairs.

McGee chased after them. "Maybe that's good. Maybe they dropped the charges quickly."

"Not likely, McGee." Ziva shook her head and glanced at Vance's assistant as they passed through into the office. Vance was standing there, waiting for them. One look at him and Ziva turned back to close the door. Then she returned to her station in front of his desk.

"We have a situation in Mexico," Vance began. "Gibbs and his escort were attacked on the way to the federal courthouse. There were several fatalities but as far as we know Gibbs isn't among them. He's missing, assumed kidnapped."

Vance looked each one of them in the eye, taking his time. "I don't think I have to tell you that this is an extremely dangerous situation for Gibbs. However, he's a private citizen at the moment, which means the US embassy and Mexican authorities are handling it." Vance turned a glare on them that McGee thought he must have learned from Gibbs. "NCIS is not involved in Gibbs' recovery at this time, understood?"

He paused for a moment and nodded at their silence.

"Good. Now, let me tell you what we know."

**x**

Tim looked attentive and calm as his director spoke. Tim always looked attentive when orders came down from superiors. Inside, though . . . his mind shot away from the office, away from his sworn duties, and zeroed in on the unsworn ones. He felt Gibbs' presence now as surely as he'd felt it a thousand times before – supporting him, pushing him, backing him up.

Beside him, he knew Tony and Ziva felt the same. The team's connection to Gibbs had long ago surpassed official duties and the chain of command.

Director Vance continued to speak, something about jurisdiction and agency precedents and international law. Tim didn't pay him any mind. Gibbs was a thousand miles away, alone, in trouble.

He let the director's warnings wash over him and fade away.

Nothing stood in Gibbs' way when it came to protecting his people. Nothing was going to stand in Tim's way, either. He figured they'd first need to find out everything they could about Gibbs' abduction. That meant reading the Federales' real-time internal files.

Hacking into Mexican intelligence shot to the top of Tim's mental to-do list. And at precisely that moment Tim felt the flat gaze of his boss's boss lock onto him.

"McGee, David, you can return to your desks," Vance said. "Dinozzo, stay a minute."

Tim turned and left the room, Ziva moving beside him. They stopped on the balcony to look out over the busy agency.

Ziva felt the knife tucked into its holster at the small of her back and the backup gun in its holster near her boot. Her reflexes and mental defenses gathered, as they always did in the face of a threat, and she felt bolstered, as she hoped she always would, by the solid presence of a teammate at her side. A teammate who looked decidedly busy for someone just standing there silently.

As they waited for Tony to emerge her mind turned south . . . she had contacts in Latin America, and favors to be called in. The murmuring and shuffling and polite motions of the agents in the cubicles below her faded away.

**x**

"Dinozzo," Vance's voice was terse. "You're lead agent of the team for the foreseeable future. No matter what is happening outside of this agency we all have a job to do within these walls. This is not a time for mistakes or hesitation. Think you're up to it?"

Tony's body was coiled – almost vibrating, like a spring. But his steady gaze hadn't left the director's since he first entered the office. It didn't waver now.

"Yes, sir."

Vance nodded and looked down at his desk, seemingly preoccupied with whatever was next on his agenda.

"Good. I know this is difficult. If circumstances were different . . . if this agency had the authority to retrieve him, I wouldn't hesitate to track one of our men down. Unfortunately, search and rescue on foreign soil isn't within our mandate. Now I know what NCIS owes him, I know what your team owes him. If you or your teammates need a few days leave to gather your thoughts, to refocus, Cynthia has the forms."

When Vance looked up his gaze bore into Tony's like a punch. "I'll sign off."

"Understood, sir."

Vance nodded to the door. "Dismissed."

 

 

 


	5. Bob's Your Uncle

Tony strode out of Vance's office and came to a halt next to Ziva and McGee. They were uncharacteristically quiet, staring down into the bullpen.

He turned toward the elevator. "Campfire. Abby's lab. Now."

But when the elevator doors opened Abby was already there, pacing back and forth in the metal box. She motioned to them hurriedly, shifting from foot to foot as the grim-faced agents piled in. Abby hit the stop button the moment the doors closed and spun to grab Tim and Ziva's shoulders.

It was Tony she fixed with her big green eyes.

He grimaced. She usually gave Gibbs that look. It was absolute trust and faith and loyalty, all tied up in a terrified bow. He felt simultaneous urges to kiss her cheek and run.

"You know?" he asked.

Abby nodded.

Tim's brow furrowed distractedly. Abby glanced at him and rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, McGee, you have to ask? I wasn't going to let Gibbs be thrown to the Mexican lions without keeping an eye on him and Rivera wasn't the only contact I made at the symposium. Now focus! Gibbs is _kidnapped_."

Abby paused to look at them expectantly.

Approximately two seconds in she gave up on getting a satisfactory response. So she took a deep breath and yelled. "What are we going to _do?_ "

Ziva and Tim literally jerked back to the present. Tony nodded. Time to step up. To do what Gibbs had taught him to do.

"We're going to get him back, Abs," he said. Tony's voice was calm and low, but the words came fast. His eyes shifted from Abby to Tim and back again. "Do you know anyone there who'll give you information about the attack? Crime scene, forensics, visuals, suspects - anything?"

Abby returned his gaze in a steady, non-bubbly way that wasn't exactly encouraging. "I've kept in touch with a few of the forensic techs I met at the symposium."

Tony nodded. "We'll need information on anyone who might have wanted Gibbs enough to kill for him. They took him alive – that's our first clue. I want a list of suspects and I want to know everything there is to know about them. Movement, bank accounts, phones, everything. That means the Reynosa cartel, rival drug lords, Colonel Bell's old crew, corrupt Federales, guns for hire – "

"Basically anyone in Mexico who might find a federal agent with twenty years of classified intel pertaining to the drug war and American national security valuable," Ziva interrupted. "There will be – well, thousands – "

Abby began a soft mantra under her breath. Something like, "Oh god oh god oh Gibbs oh god oh god . . ."

Tony's eyes focused on McGee's forehead. "Right. What we need is intel on all and sundry Mexican baddies," Tony confirmed. "And, of course, American ex-pats who hate Gibbs and just happen to be south of the border right now. Focus on any spikes in chatter over the last two weeks."

A pregnant pause.

Hey!" Tony reached up and cuffed the back of McGee's head. "I'm talking to you, McHacker."

McGee's eyes hadn't once left the floor of the elevator. His mind was already buried under an avalanche of Mexican servers. "I need to get downstairs. Data packets routed through firewire sourced by Latin American servers will - "

Tony closed his eyes and shook his head like a dog with a bee up its nose.

"Uh," Tim frowned. "International hacking will be faster from Cyber Crimes." He looked at Ziva. "Your Spanish is better than mine."

She nodded. "I'm right behind you, McGee."

Before they could pull away Abby wrapped them all up in a tight group hug. "What are we going to do about Vance?" she mumbled into Tony's shoulder.

He reached past a pigtail to flip the switch. "Bob's your uncle. I'll take care of Vance."

**x**

A few hours later Tony and Ziva were officially on leave and Director Vance was forced to shift all major crime response to backup teams. Agent McGee was conveniently assigned cold case review in the Cyber Crimes Unit.

Abby's response time to forensic analysis requests had slowed considerably for no good official reason, but no one dared to complain. Not to her face, at least. Gibbs might be missing, but his team looked pretty determined to get him back, and anyway, Gibbs would likely return from his reserved spot in hell just to kick the ass of anyone who screwed with Abby.

**x**

Three days passed, time slipping away from them in a frenzy of research. A crash course on the Reynosa cartel and every possible avenue of Mexican intelligence on the kidnapping.

Tuesday afternoon Tony sat in Abby's swivel chair, watching her suck down yet another Caf Pow and pace around him. Her phone pressed to her ear, she listened impatiently to a rundown of fresh cases on the forensic docket in Morelos.

Spread out on the desk in front of Tony were piles of satellite images and an enormous map of the Republic of Mexico. The photos and map were covered in post-its with scribbled references indicating last known whereabouts of drug kingpins, couriers,  assorted lackeys - all the old connections to Gibbs and the long-dead Hernandez.

They had no leads. None.

Tony stared at the little black dot marked Cozumel. He'd been there once when he was a kid, on one of his father's endless business vacations. After his mother . . . when it was lonely.

Cozumel was incredibly beautiful, a paradise. They'd gone sailing, Tony remembered. One of his father's associates had a gorgeous old sloop, all polished wood and brass and lean, elegant lines. There'd been a good wind and Tony had clung to a cold soda with one hand and the teak deck with the other, watching as the world tore by. Ignored by the men but happy for awhile there in the sun, carried by the wind and that endless moving water.

Gibbs would've really liked it. Tony wondered if he could ever maneuver the boss into taking him sailing.

Wondered, just for a second, if the boss was still alive.

The daydream fell away when the door to Abby's lab flung back on its hinges and Ziva and McGee crashed into the room. They skidded to a halt and sucked in air.

Abby slammed down the phone. "What?" she barked.

McGee straightened up to report, no doubt alarmed by an Abby channeling Gibbs. "Federales arrested a hitman last night south of Mexico City. He's a gun for hire, connected to the Reynosas.The Mexican police think this guy was there when Gibbs was taken."

Tony shot to his feet. McGee was already shaking his head.

"We can't even ask to talk to him. First of all," McGee said, "This is classified Mexican intel. We do _not_ know any of it. Even if it wasn't, according to Mexican investigators the guy isn't talking. And even if he was, the US embassy isn't likely to get access to him until after his initial interrogation and arraignment. Could be weeks. But –" he glanced sideways at Ziva.

She picked up the narrative seamlessly. "I have a contact at Interpol based in Mexico City. He may be able to interview the suspect . . . informally."

"How long?" Tony demanded.

Ziva smirked. "I promised to call him every half hour, for as long as it takes."

Nine hours and seventeen fruitless phone calls later, Tony and Ziva sat with their backs against the wall on the floor of the lab, crumpled napkins and the styrofoam remains of barbeque takeout scattered between them. McGee and Abby had curled up on the futon in the opposite corner an hour ago and looked to be sound asleep.

Tony's arms draped over his knees, the watch on his left wrist gleaming in the soft night lights of the lab.

Ziva watched out of the corner of her eye as as he flexed his hands, the tendons in his arms shifting under the skin. A telltale sign his mind was restless, searching. She waited.

Tony considered how to begin. He'd never been good at - well, _gentle_ interrogation. Gibbs usually handled that, right along with the scared kids and the grieving survivors and the wounded people . . .

But Gibbs wasn't here. That was the point.

"The Reynosas, Dean, they just released him a couple weeks ago," he pondered quietly. "Why take him again?" He tilted his head lazily toward Ziva, managed to stop himself from looking right at her. He kept his eyes on the blinking machines and the dark windows beyond. A glance at the futon showed no movement from Abby or Tim.

Ziva's gaze didn't waver from the windows, as far as he could tell. She'd been still as a statue for hours. Tony figured she could sit there for days and never twitch.

Finally she sighed and stretched out her legs, speaking low to let the others sleep. "You really want me to answer that, Tony?" At his silence she continued. "The Reynosas have many motives for killing Gibbs. Punishment for refusing to be their mule in Washington. A warning to American law enforcement and the drug task force. Revenge for their father."

Tony's hands flexed again. "Yeah. But if they were after revenge they could've just shot him in the ambush. Kidnapping Gibbs is a hell of a lot riskier. There must be a reason." He cringed a little. Of course there was a reason. He really wasn't any good at this.

"Yes. It is more likely that they want him for information. Or as a hostage, for ransom."

"They haven't made any demands," Tony said, very quiet now.

Ziva hesitated. It was hard to sit there and put words to it, when it was Gibbs and she knew . . . knew exactly what she was talking about. "Information is more likely at this point."

He couldn't let it go, he needed to know. Tony reminded himself of that and laced his fingers together to keep them absolutely steady. A trick he'd picked up from Gibbs. "You said once that no one can hold out for more than a few days. With a trained interrogator it's even less – maybe a few hours."

"Yes, if I am interrogating them that is true," she said tonelessly.

"Gibbs has been gone for three days."

Ziva was silent for awhile. "I doubt they will be looking for specific information, Tony. Gibbs has decades of experience, has worked with every branch of the United States military, run covert operations all over the world, built personal and professional connections at NCIS, the FBI, the CIA. . . And he almost certainly has information and connections beyond this that we are not aware of."

Tony didn't bother to respond. He knew all that, and Ziva knew that he knew. He tightened his grip on his fingers, though his hands were steady, and forged ahead into what he didn't know. "So the techniques are different? For . . . general information?"

She was still, so still it almost seemed she wasn't there.

"Yes."

He groped for the right questions. "The truth serum Saleem used on me. Is that common?"

Ziva's gaze wandered from window to window, to Tony's profile, and back to the windows. "It is not uncommon." She flicked her wrist impatiently, as if irritated by her own noncommittal answers. "The formulas may differ slightly, but so-called truth serums are easy to make. However, they are not all-powerful. It is possible to resist them with practice. It was part of my training at Mossad. We know Gibbs was a covert agent, that he ran black ops. It is likely he received similar training."

Tony nodded, trying to keep the rhythm up. A purely informational interview. "Okay, let's assume he's immune to truth serum. What comes next?"

Ziva pondered that. "A prisoner like Gibbs is a liability. If his captors are impatient they will kill him immediately. But that seems unlikely, since they took so much trouble to kidnap him in the first place," she said dryly. "If they can find time and a secure location they will wear him down and kill him only after he has given up the bulk of what he knows."

She sighed and finally answered the unspoken question. "Gibbs is strong. Stronger than I am - than any of us, but - " she took a careful breath. "If they are thorough . . . I would guess two weeks, maybe three. After that they will know what he knows, or whatever web of lies Gibbs might try to spin for them. They will kill him then, almost certainly."

That was all he needed to know, for Gibbs. They had two weeks, maybe three.

But he felt the other question sucking him in. One that had nothing to do with their boss. The one that had been hovering between him and Ziva for almost two years.

Well, Ziva would tell him where to stuff it if she didn't want to answer. He turned his head to squint at her through the dim light. "You too, huh? Two weeks?"

"Yes," she said evenly. "That is why information is compartmentalized at Mossad, even within the team. It is safer for everyone to know as little as possible."

Tony nodded, kept his face impassive.

She'd been in Saleem's camp for three months. A liability all that time. Now he knew without doubt that they did not keep her for information. But they had kept her. What for – well. Ziva was beautiful. Stunning. Tony had heard men on the street gasp when she walked by them, actually gasp.

Her magnetism certainly influenced Tony's relationship with her. It played into how screwed up things got with Rivkin. Fed Tony's anger, made it all too personal. Goaded him on as he pulled at her last, desperate loyalty to her lover and her family. To the oaths she had sworn to her country. He hadn't really cared about that. Hadn't cared about anything but her loyalty to NCIS. To _him_.

Over the last few years he'd wondered, when he was really drunk and maudlin, if he wasn't just one more in a long line of men who'd tried to control her. To hold something so beautiful to him, and not let go no matter how she struggled, no matter what it did to them.

Tony shifted, took a breath, and shoved the past away. He wasn't perfect, he knew that. But he wasn't like her father either, or her old partners at Mossad. It wasn't Tony's fault she ended up a prisoner in that camp. Wasn't hers either. It was all just impossibly fucked up. How could you be on Gibbs' team and Mossad's team at the same time? How could you trust anyone - even Gibbs - when you'd grown up in that? You couldn't. It'd all blown up in their faces. And why? Because they had not wanted her to be a liaison. Not the men she worked with at Mossad. Not the men she worked with at NCIS. They all wanted her for themselves, true only to them.

Back then he'd sat at his desk for three months after she disappeared, and done nothing. He'd known that wasn't right even then, while he was doing it. Month after month of nothing. Wondering. Hesitating. And all that time, a sick fuck like Saleem was reveling in having something so beautiful in his grasp, someone so proud under his thumb.

Shame and fear and exhaustion rose up in his chest and tore at him like an animal, a physical pain, squeezing his heart until he gathered all his will and pushed it back down.

He couldn't think about that now. He never wanted to think about it again. He gripped his own hands and focused on what he could fix.

They were going to get Gibbs back. Gibbs was stronger than all of them. He had two weeks, maybe three. And Tony would not hesitate this time, that was for damned sure. He would never again sit back and do nothing.

Ziva checked her watch and picked up the phone.

 

* * *

  _You might recognize a couple of lines from this and the previous chapter, since I stole them from Season 7:_

_Gibbs: Hey! That it?_

_Dinozzo: Yeah. What else is there?_

_Gibbs: Well, maybe we send a couple of agents to the region._

_Dinozzo: What for?_

_Gibbs: Gather some intel. You know, put some eyes on the target. Change the circumstances._

_Dinozzo: Change . . . the circumstances. And you can sell that to Vance?_

_Gibbs: Oh yeah, strictly investigatively. Of course._

_Dinozzo: Of course. Wow, you guys have a whole little thing going on that I'm not seeing. But I get it. Wink wink, nudge nudge, Bob's your uncle. I'm hip. I dig it._

_Gibbs: Good. Gonna need volunteers._

_Dinozzo: I volunteer myself and Special Agent McGee for the secret fact finding mission thingy._

_-_ From NCIS: "Truth or Consequences"


	6. You're Not Going to Like It

McGee and Tony dozed on Ducky's autopsy tables. Ziva slumped in the medical examiner's swivel chair, sound asleep under the soft glow of the emergency lights.

Ducky hadn't even tried to cajole them home when he left hours before. He only said the same thing he'd been saying to them for the last six days. 

You'll get him back.

Reassurance, laced with demand.

Ziva's cell shattered the quiet, ringing at its loudest volume, driving the three agents bolt upright instantaneously. She answered before the first ring died, holding up a finger for silence. She listened for a minute, spoke in rapid fire Spanish, listened again. Finally she gave whoever was on the other end of the line a low _gracias_ and ended the call.

She stared at them for a beat, until Tony got in her face. "Ziva," he growled.

"Yes." She blinked and came back to herself. "My contact was able to get into the holding cells and interrogate the suspect. He believes it is true that this hit man was involved in the ambush on Gibbs. The suspect claims that the Reynosa cartel hired a crew to kidnap Gibbs, along with several Mexican agents."

Ziva paused, looking into McGee's eyes, then Tony's. They both had such pale eyes, and they looked at her so openly.

She bit her lip. Her teammates were not exactly innocent, she knew that. But they did not have the same experience with evil that lay rotting in her own past, either. You could see it in their eyes. They were . . . clean. They had never felt it brush up against them, as seductive as it was awful, like the foulest kiss. Never felt its pull.

No one on the team understood that part of her except, perhaps, for Gibbs. She did not think the others even recognized what was inside of her for what it was, or really knew that it was there.

She loved her teammates. But somehow, over the years, she had come to _need_ Gibbs. And at that moment she missed him desperately.

Ziva tore her eyes from theirs and forced herself to continue, voice even. Unaffected. "The abducted Mexican agents were kept by the Reynosas. But Gibbs . . . this source says that Gibbs was sold."

The too open eyes blinked at her.

"Sold?" McGee echoed. "Like - ransom? To who?"

Ziva tensed. "No. Not like ransom. His information is valuable, McGee, many would pay to have him. I do not know to who," she went on. "If the suspect knew the name of the organization he did not give it up. But he said that it was an organization. And that the men he dealt with were Colombian."

"Colombians," Tony muttered, and shoved away from the others to pace around the room.

You can piss off only so many powerful people, can't you, before it all comes back around. And Gibbs had fought so recklessly, in so many petty wars. Pissed off so many, many people . . . a flash of despair bubbled in Tony's gut. He'd felt this way once before. When they first realized that Ziva was missing in Africa. This same shameful feeling had grabbed at him, paralyzed him. It was fear, really - fear that this just might be bigger than him, than _them_. That Gibbs' team had finally come up against something stronger than they were. That they'd lost before they even began.

"Oh," McGee breathed. "Fuck."

There's our little McGenius, Tony thought. That sums it up pretty well.

Tony could feel their eyes on him. His team's eyes. He scrubbed his hands through his hair, using the distraction and the few seconds to gather up his doubt. Then he crumpled it all into a little ball and smashed it into nothing.

Gibbs never showed doubt, and Tony wouldn't either. The team needed that arrogance - the absurd, almighty confidence. Tony would be damned if he wasn't going to give it to them.

"Okay," he said firmly. "I'm going to to update Vance. You two fill Abby in and get to work. I want intel on Colombians operating in Mexico. We need to know who took him and where they went. Meet you in the lab."

The three agents scattered.

**x**

An hour later Tony stalked into Abby's domain, launching into a speech before he'd even fully entered the room.

"Listen up. Vance thinks we'll need CIA intel if we can't figure this one out on our own and you know how I feel about calling up the CIA for help. So tell me what you've got."

"Um," Abby started, "Well, we have a lot actually. But you're not going to like it."

Tony sighed as he sank down onto one of Abby's lab stools. "Lay it on me."

"Well first off, it pays to have Mexican forensic friends. Two weeks ago the Federales and men from a Colombian cartel fought it out in the streets of a slum outside of Merida, a small city on the Gulf Coast." Abby pointed to a location on the GoogleEarth map she'd pulled up. "It was a total bloodbath. Over sixty people killed, a lot more wounded." Abby's fingers flew over her keyboard and a mugshot appeared on her screen. "Roberto Londono is thought to be the head of the Colombian gang that's recently been active in eastern Mexico – including Merida. And, well - " Abby cleared her throat. "Londono was a lieutenant in the old Calera cartel."

Tony stiffened. The Caleras were infamous. "I thought they busted the top Calera guys years ago and the organization broke up."

Tim nodded seriously. "It did. But it looks like Londono's been putting the pieces back together. Crime that can be traced back to former Calera operatives has exploded in Colombia over the last five years."

"What's this got to do with Gibbs?" Tony sighed.

"Londono's not satisfied with Colombia anymore," Abby said. "According to the Federales he's making serious efforts to expand into Mexico. Supply lines to the States, a network for drug distribution, money laundering – all the essentials for making big bucks are there for the taking in Mexico, if you're willing to fight for the market. The Caleras are already one of the most powerful cartels in the world. If they expand . . . "

Tony reminded himself not to grind his teeth. He shouldn't be surprised. Gibbs never did anything half-assed, did he? What was wrong with being kidnapped by normal criminals, like a normal federal agent? Were your average drug runners just not badass enough?

No. Of course they weren't. Leroy Jethro Gibbs would always shoot for the stars. He had to piss off only the biggest and scariest of all the very scary badasses in all the big bad world. Good job, Gibbs. Aim high.

"Would someone please tell me how this relates to Gibbs," he ground out.

Abby didn't seem to want to put voice to it. After a pause McGee stepped in. Always the gentleman. "The Federales believe that Londono's organization has become allied with the Reynosa cartel," McGee said. "The fight in Merida lasted for days, but in the end the Mexican Army were able to kill or arrest many of the Calera fighters hiding outside the city. After the loss in Merida Londono would be eager for information that Gibbs probably has. Think about it – personal knowledge of American agents working in Mexico, of the anti-drug task force, of operations here in the States. And uh . . . there's also . . . well."

McGee glanced at Abby. She was chewing her lip nervously and staring at Tony with the "fix-it" look.

"Words, McGee," Tony pressed.

McGee cleared his throat and rallied. "The Calera cartel was founded by three brothers in the late 70s." He turned to Abby's computer and brought up three mugshots of well-dressed men, all sporting extremely 80s hair.

Tony wrinkled his nose as he leaned forward to study them.

"By all accounts Londono was a close family friend from childhood, as well as a lieutenant in the gang," McGee went on. "Almost a fourth brother. The organization grew through the 1980s and began routinely carrying out political killings and kidnappings in Colombia. They took out several American agents and became one of our principle targets in the drug war."

McGee's attention had been darting nervously between Tony and the computer he was working on, but now he looked up at Tony and held his gaze, steady as you please.

"All three of the brothers were assassinated within a two week period in 1992," he said.

The date hung in the air for a moment.

"After that the Calera organization fragmented into regional gangs. Londono and other lieutenants took over pieces of it and fought each other for power for years, which limited their influence. Lately intelligence suggests that many of the fragmented pieces are working together again. It seems Londono is rebuilding the old cartel with himself at the head."

"And no one was ever pinned for the assassinations?" Tony asked. Already resigned.

"No."

The team exchanged significant looks.

"Alright. We know Gibbs was in Colombia in '92," Tony muttered. "And as a black-ops sniper. He could easily be the assassin." The team nodded. "And the Reynosas have been digging into his past for a long time. They would know enough about Gibbs to put two and two together on that."

"The Calera brothers were all killed with a single shot to the head or chest, for what it's worth," Abby spoke up reluctantly. "One long-range round each according to newspaper accounts at the time."

"So they were killed by snipers, or a sniper. Even if it wasn't Gibbs he would have information on the drug war in the region when the assassinations took place," Ziva considered. "He also has inside information on Mexico now, just as the reformed Calera gang is trying to get a foothold in Mexico. Finally he's a route to revenge for Londono, if he has somehow found proof that Gibbs was one of the assassins behind his adoptive brothers' deaths."

"Oh, damn!" Abby slammed her hand down on the lab table, her face crumpling in front of them. "The ballistics that tied Gibbs' rifle to the Hernandez case. All the details were published in my report! Any forensic scientist with access to US databases - "

"Would be able to tie the kills Gibbs made with that rifle back to him," Tony finished grimly.

Tony gripped Abby's countertop and swore as the events of the last few weeks came together in his mind. "The Reynosas were planning this all along. I mean come on, leaving Gibbs' fate up to lawyers?"

Ziva and Tim were nodding. "If they have Gibbs," Ziva mused, "then the Reynosas have something valuable to bring to the table when haggling with the Colombians that are encroaching on their territory. Handing over Gibbs could cement a business relationship with the new Calera cartel. And, of course, the Reynosas would know that Gibbs would pay for their father's death. Two kills with one stone."

The agents were silent for a moment as the enormity of that sank in. Gibbs had pissed-off not one but two of the most powerful cartels in the world. And now the man was in their hands.

Actually, pissed-off was something of an understatement.

Tony looked up at Abby. "We haven't even gotten to the part I'm not going to like yet, have we?"

He was teasing her at that point. In the throes of her worry for Gibbs, Abby's protective instincts for all of them were on high-alert. She didn't want to bring up anything that might remind him of Jeanne. But he was over that now, mostly. Abby fidgeted and glared at him half-heartedly. It was Ziva who answered.

"No. The part that you aren't going to like involves evidence from the gun battle in Merida. The preliminary reports were processed by Mexican law enforcement but sent to us courtesy of a friend of Abby's at the CIA – our sister agency." Ziva's sarcasm was hard enough to bounce off the walls. "The shootout was monitored, my own sources say instigated, by the CIA. They also say there is only one man to talk to at that agency about the drug war currently raging in Colombia. Only one based in DC, at any rate."

Tony nodded. He'd already heard it from Vance. "Kort."

"Yes, Trent Kort." Ziva threw him a look, startled that he'd known all along. "Apparently Kort was selected for the operation against La Grenouille because he was completely unknown in Europe at the time. His specialty before the Frog was Latin and South America. But according to my contact he has returned to his old haunting grounds now that his mission in Europe is complete. And that means he may have information that we can use. The assassinations in '92 in Colombia and the battle in Medina two weeks ago both have CIA footprints all over them," Ziva concluded.

"Right," McGee said. "But that could be a good thing." He turned earnestly to Tony. "If the CIA is tied up in what's happening with the Calera cartel right now then they'll be tracking movement between Mexico and Colombia. If Londono has Gibbs he would want to move him out of Mexico as quickly as possible, right? Gibbs would be more secure on their own turf. The drug war is fought in the open in Mexico, but in Colombia?" McGee shook his head. "In remote regions some of the cartels have had the upperhand for years. Intel on their activities is gathered almost entirely by covert methods. If anyone has information on where Gibbs might be right now, and how to get him out of there, it's the CIA."

Tony bent his head into his hands, elbows resting on Abby's pristine countertop, and rubbed his forehead for a moment. Then he sucked it up. He hated Kort and he always would. But the man might have the information or the contacts that they needed to find Gibbs. Nothing else mattered.

"Right," he said, still speaking to the countertop. "Time to prove my love for the bossman. Suppose you've got the number, Abs?"

Abby grinned as she pushed a slip of paper with Kort's personal cell scribbled on it across the counter to Tony.

Maybe it was lack of sleep, or too many Caf-Pows, but she felt an unusually sappy swell of love right then for Gibbs' team, and a little bubble of optimism for the boss, too. Gibbs put this group of people together. He'd patched them into a sort of makeshift family, and family was a powerful thing. No matter how terrible his enemies were, Abby knew the team's love for the boss was just as fierce. Fiercer. Together they were stronger than anything anyone could throw at them. Together, they would get Gibbs back.

She turned and gave McGee a spontaneous hug.


	7. You're Really Not Going to Like It

Tony was a procrastinator when it came to anything he didn't want to do. Filling out forms. Cleaning the van. Signing up for inane mandatory seminars. He'd talk about it endlessly, strategize how to best get out of it, and only then, complaining all the way, just might do it. Or more likely, get McGee or Ziva to do it. So no one was expecting him to call Kort right there in Abby's lab. Until he dialed.

The phone was ringing before the team registered that Tony was cold calling his most loathed nemesis. They gaped for a split second that was truly amusing. Tony winked and grinned back at them.

Ziva was the first to recover, as usual. "Are you insane?" she hissed, snatching the phone. "Gibbs will die of old age before Kort goes out of his way to help _you_!"

She pulled the phone up to her ear, voice morphing instantly into a warm, professional clip. "Agent Kort, this is Ziva David at NCIS. I would like to speak with you about a situation involving Agent Gibbs. Please call me at this number – it is urgent."

She ended the call and folded her arms, still glaring at him. Tony smothered a laugh. Truth be told he'd been concerned when the phone got to the ringing stage and he found himself still holding it. He should have known her ninja reflexes wouldn't let him down.

"More waiting," Abby moaned. "This is killing me." Abruptly she turned to McGee. "How fast do you think the CIA loads new satellite imagery into its databases?"

McGee glanced at Tony. "Fast. Might be worth a shot. No telling when Kort will get back to us, or what he'll be willing to share when he does."

Tony looked them over thoughtfully. He knew McGee and Abby were good. But the CIA would detect, sooner or later, that files containing information of particular interest to NCIS – namely Gibbs' team – had been breached. Still, Vance insinuated that the agency could take the heat. It made Tony wonder what the director had on the CIA. Unless Vance was secretly just as ballsy as Gibbs ever was . . .

McGee and Abby were both looking at him, waiting for him. He nodded. "Do it."

Thirteen minutes later Tony's cell rang. Abby and McGee, engrossed in prying open classified CIA files, continued to hammer away at their keyboards.

Tony glanced at his caller ID. "Well that was fast. It's him." He opened the phone and placed it on the counter. Ziva leaned forward to hit the speaker button. "This is Ziva David."

"Get out of our satellite cache, David."

In the background of the lab the clacking of keys abruptly stopped.

"Kort," Ziva said. "Thank you for returning my call."

"Get out of our files or this call - and your careers - will be shorter than you want them to be." Kort sounded unconcerned. Bored, even, as if he was telling an annoying little sister to stop hogging the cornflakes.

Then again, he pretty much always sounded like that, and he'd never struck any of them as one for idle threats.

Tony waved hurriedly at Abby and McGee and the keys started up again. The clacking was distinctly frantic.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Ziva said smoothly.

She paused. A few seconds and a wide-eyed Abby gave them a thumbs-up.

Ziva continued, "We are not 'in' your files. I called because we are looking for information on some recent movement in Colombia. We understand you may also have an interest in the area."

A pause on the other end of the line.

"Kort?"

"Meet me at the north end of Clifton Park in an hour," he said, and the call went dead.

Tony reached out and snapped his phone shut. 

He knew the CIA was supposed to be sneaky. But he really hadn't expected Kort to surprise him quite this much. He turned to Ziva. "I expected that conversation to involve more begging. For starters. Then I thought we'd move into groveling and bribery. And threats."

Ziva nodded thoughtfully, still staring at the phone.

"Where the hell is Clifton Park?" Tony asked the room.

Abby pulled up GoogleEarth, clacked a bit, and winced. "Oh. This is kind of . . . whoever's going to this meeting needs to leave now. Want me to send coordinates to the car?"

Tony nodded. "Ziva, you're with me. You two . . ." Tony trailed off, looking the geeks over more closely. " . . . You two are too pleased with yourselves to have turned and run from the Big Bad Kort," he said. "You kept the CIA imagery somehow, didn't you?"

McGee and Abby smiled back at him sweetly.

Tony loved his crazy ass team, he really did. "Well, look it over, see what you can get from it." He shook his head, walking out of the lab with Ziva at his side. "You know, when you think about it those two are a little scary. If they can hack into the CIA in ten minutes . . ."

Ziva nodded seriously, keeping pace with his long legs as they turned away from the elevator and headed briskly up the stairs, taking a shortcut to the parking lot. "Yes. They can easily access our personal computers, accounts, internet history . . . That is why I am always careful to be nice to Abby and McGee."

She smirked at his frown, then grabbed the keys from his hand. "We'll get there faster if I drive."

**x**

They tore through the fringes of hard-hit working class neighborhoods until finally reaching Clifton Park, which itself had seen better days. Well, Tony hoped it had. There was a sad sort of playground on the south side. Dusty from the dirt-packed ground, battered see-saws and rusty metal swings drifting in the warm spring breeze. Next to the playground was a scruffy soccer field, a lumpy brown running track laid around the perimeter.

Ziva parked the car on the north side, where a hill led up to a grassy area with a view over the field. A few beautiful old trees lent shade to a group of benches and picnic tables. Kort was already there, reading a newspaper at one of the tables.

Besides a few young kids and their mothers, gathered around the swing sets across the field, the three agents were the only people there.

Ziva gave Tony a look, her eyes saying _stay calm_. He was telling himself the same thing. Kort rubbed him the wrong way on a good day. But today Gibbs was missing and Tony was short on sleep, overloaded on stress, trying to bury the constant fear stalking around the back of his mind – the _what if_. What if Gibbs was hurt? If they couldn't find him? Never found him? What if he was already dead?

Tony took a breath and reminded himself that Kort was a contact they needed on this one. And if Gibbs could work with the slimy bastard, Tony could damn well grit his teeth and do the same.

Well. Not _quite_ the same. "If anything proves my total and unconditional love for Gibbs," he complained as they set out across the grass toward Kort, "this is it. This is the big romantic finale. I'm climbing a fire escape with roses in my teeth as we speak."

They reached the table and Tony continued without skipping a beat.

"Kort!" he said cheerily, and slid into the bench. "Long time no see. Such a shame. What an interesting meeting place, always fun to explore and such a nice neighborhood too. Well. We'd love to catch up but," Tony raised his wrist and wriggled his watch. "Tick-tock. And we wouldn't want to keep you from, you know, whatever dictators or arms dealers you're busy cozying up to these days. So let's make this snappy." Big smile, lots of teeth. "Do you know where he is?"

Kort folded the paper and laid it down, looking irritated. Tony grinned, satisfied.

"Everything I am about to say is classified beyond your wildest clearance dreams," Kort said. "Repeat it and you'll become authorized targets of the CIA. Of _me_."

Tony and Ziva nodded to the unspoken question. Ziva felt her heartbeat speed up. The warning could only mean one thing.

"I know where he is," Kort said simply. He slipped a manila envelope out of the newspaper's folds and took two satellite photos from it. "Your lackeys may have these images, but they don't understand what they're looking at." He slid the top photograph across the table to them, pointing to a tiny pale speck on an almost uniformly black picture. "This is an outpost of the new Calera cartel, located in the northern jungles of Colombia. We call it Camp Six. As you can see it's . . . remote," he said dryly.

Tony and Ziva leaned in to study the photo. Most of the image was dark, they saw now, but it wasn't completely black. Dozens of thin, true black lines twisted through the jungle canopy – the black lines must be streams, or rivers, Tony thought, depending on the photo's scale. Tiny blocks of lighter gray could just be made out, clustered to the north and east of the camp, scattered here and there through the rest of the picture.

Kort circled the camp, indicated the gray blocks. "These are coca or opium plantations. Some marijuana as well."

There didn't seem to be any roads, and the camp itself was not on a waterway. "It is supplied by air?" Ziva asked.

The CIA agent nodded. "Anything needed from the outside world is flown in. Product is flown out. Motorized patrols run through the area on small roads - more like trails, really," Kort grimaced. "Their routes can't be seen from the air due to canopy. We believe Gibbs was flown into Camp Six two days ago." Kort sat back and watched the two agents study the photograph with new intensity. "According to our sources they'll keep him there at least until their interrogation specialist can be brought in. That will probably be in the next five to eight days."

Kort took a breath and wished he still smoked. Smoking was made for conversations like this.

"I wouldn't bother with one of your heroic rescues if you don't make it to him before the specialist does," he added.

Tony opened his mouth.

"Please don't be so stupid as to ask where I'm getting my information." Kort slid the second photo over the first. "A close-up of the camp."

Tony's eyes went wide. Beside him Ziva cursed in Hebrew. The scale of the first photo was clear, now. The "camp" was a small city. Kort pointed to a dense area on the upper edge of the photo, filled with row after row of tiny squares. "Barracks," he said. "Here," he indicated structures on the lower edge of the photo, "garages, helicopter hangers, equipment and supply storage." A thick line running along the bottom edge of the image, "Air-strip. The larger buildings next to it are labs. Along the east side, quarters for well-heeled visitors and the cartel's lieutenants. The rest of it," Kort swept his hand over the less tidy shapes sprawling through the western half of the photograph, "markets and make-shift shelters built by the workers. Field hands and lab rats live there. As you can see the squatters bleed into the fields and jungle to the west. There's wire surrounding everything valuable – labs, hangers, barracks. You can't see the fence itself in this image but the four corners are marked by guard towers." His finger marked the fuzzy gray blocks. "There are mini camps closer to the fields for plantation workers," Kort continued rapidly. "The fields are guarded by squads of soldiers that rotate into and out of the main camp, some daily, some weekly. Smaller squads patrol on foot and in trucks."

Ziva and Tony looked up at him, questioning.

"The patrols are the elite." Kort answered, before they could ask. "But none of these soldiers are decorative. They engage regularly with rival gangs throughout Colombia and in neighboring countries, and with Colombian rebel guerilla forces looking to take over their operations. We support their efforts against the rebels, so most of the cartel fighters were trained by ex-US and occasionally Israeli Special Forces personnel. There are fishing villages to the north and ranch land to the south and east. Calera squads deploy there frequently to keep the local population in line."

Ziva's eyes moved rapidly over the photographs, committing their smallest details to memory. "So Londono has rebuilt the Calera's paramilitary army," she said. "How effective does your agency judge his soldiers to be?"

Kort folded his hands on the table in front of him and squinted off into the distance. There were a couple kids dribbling a soccer ball through the trees now, Tony noticed. He watched them for a second, ensuring they stayed out of hearing range.

"We estimate they have between seven and ten thousand fighters in total, with three to eight hundred based at Camp Six, depending on activity in the area. Substantial reinforcements are under an hour away as long as the airstrip is active."

Ziva nodded grimly. The figures were not unusual for such an organization.

"They are well-trained and have an endless supply of money and equipment from the drug trade. They're ruthless," Kort said neutrally. "The local population is terrified of them and rival forces respect them. The government does not interfere with cartel territory. They've been fighting a civil war in Colombia almost continuously since 1964, so there's no shortage of combat experience. At the moment the reformed Calera cartel is a law unto itself."

"So the answer to Ziva's question is 'very effective,'" Tony said. "And of course they are. Right-wing drug-running dirtbags have been trained by CIA-led Special Forces in Colombia for decades. Thanks a lot for that, Kort, by the way. Here's what I'd like to know. Why are you telling us this?" Tony didn't wait for an answer. "Let me guess – you're hoping we'll head down there and get our heads stuck on pikes at the camp gates. I'm not sure though . . ." Tony squinted at the photo and tilted it toward the afternoon sun, "if you'll really be able to get a good look at our mutilated corpses. This picture's a little grainy. What do you think, Ziva?"

Kort rolled his eyes and looked to Ziva as if to the voice of sanity.

She raised her eyebrows. They clearly said, I'm waiting for you to answer my partner's imminently reasonable question. Tony propped his chin in his hand and grinned.

Kort shook his head. "The agency can't lend its official support to any operation against this cartel. Londono isn't just running a criminal organization. He's the head of one of the larger private paramilitary groups currently fighting Colombia's rebel army. In this he is our ally, albeit a silent one, as well as an ally of the Colombian government. That government has been fighting the same terrorist army for forty years, with the advice of the U.S. military," Kort smiled coldly at Tony, "and the CIA, of course. Ostensibly we need men like Londono if we're ever going to win that war."

"So he gets a free pass for murder, kidnapping, and selling cocaine on the side?" Ziva asked incredulously.

"All sides of this fight are dirty," Kort said tiredly. "There is no way to both win the civil war and stay clean in the drug war. However, Londono is making a lot of people nervous. He's built a veneer of respectability and kept his criminal activity hidden, which only makes him more powerful. We didn't closely monitor the many smaller organizations he now controls until they became part of the larger cartel. He's gaining influence by the day and is extremely reclusive. We don't know enough about him."

Ziva and Tony were silent for a moment, waiting for Kort to continue, before they realized that he was looking at them expectantly.

"And you think Gibbs now has the information you want," Ziva said flatly.

"He's been in their custody for days," Kort said smoothly. "That alone means he knows more about them than any other agent currently working for us. We can get you fairly close to the camp if you are willing to go in after him."

Kort continued to speak, gesturing to the photographs, almost doggedly spilling CIA secrets. Ziva narrowed her eyes. There was an oddness about Kort today, something that went beyond his suspicious willingness to help, but she couldn't quite put her thumb on it.

"We have a small base not far from the edge of Calera controlled land. We can drop you close to the border – that's about three days on foot from Camp Six – and then pick you up on your way out. The border of Calera land is the closest you can get to the camp by air before you risk getting shot down."

Kort paused and ran a hand over his bald head, rubbing the stubble. "You'll need a guide to and from the camp, which I can also provide," he muttered, "though you're not going to like it."

Tony leaned forward on the bench and looked hard at the other man. Something was off. Kort was being way too helpful, of course, but that was because he wanted Gibbs to owe him, Tony guessed, and maybe because he wanted whatever Calera secrets Gibbs had become privy to in the last few days, though that bit was dodgy. How much of value could Gibbs possibly know? At best the boss was a prisoner locked up in a bunker somewhere, not sitting in on cartel strategy meetings.

But Kort wasn't responding to any of Tony's insults, and there was something . . . he was almost subdued, ragged around the edges.

Kort's weirdness bore thinking about, but he also had the information they needed. For the moment they'd just have to trust him.

Tony shuddered. "That's the part we're not going to like," he said. "Your guide. Right. Who is it? You?"

A kid with a soccer ball tucked under his arm dropped onto the bench next to Kort. Tony glanced away from the stone faced CIA agent, surprised. He hadn't noticed the boy moving closer. "Get lost," Tony said sharply. "This is a private party."

The boy, he couldn't have been more than fourteen, pulled back the hood of his sweatshirt and grinned at Tony. His fine dark hair was shaggy, and a few strands stuck up at the back with static, glinting red in the afternoon sun. The kid didn't move and Kort, sitting beside him, didn't say anything. The kid's eyes were pale, hard to read, and the smile was weird. Too cold for a young face.

Tony tensed, cop senses rearing up, alerting him to something off. Something wrong.

Tony glanced at Ziva, and they practically rolled their eyes together. Trust Kort to set up a meeting in a park full of junkies. They both eased hands toward their weapons. 

The boy tracked the movement. Tony opened his mouth to tell him to beat it, again, but the kid spoke first. "Dinozzo," he said. The fake smile dropped from his face as his eyes flicked to Ziva. He stared at her for a long moment. Really stared. "And David."

He pronounced it right. Da-veed.

"Dinozzo, David," Kort said grimly, "meet Gray. Your guide."


	8. Gray

Ziva recovered first. "You can't be serious."

Kort just returned her stare. His face in the fading light was all planes of gray and white. Dark lines carved shadows around his mouth.

"We're not taking a child into a war!"

"You need him," Kort said easily. "No one else on the outside knows this terrain. No one living," he amended. "He can guide you to and from the camp and handle Gibbs' extraction."

Tony shook his head sharply.

Kort's gaze was hard, boring into Ziva, then Tony. "And there isn't going to be any war. You'll pull Gibbs out undetected. Gray will be a guide, not a combatant. He'll detach himself from your team at the first sign of detection. There are too many hostiles in the area to survive if they know you're there."

"Which is precisely why we're not taking – " Tony gestured in the kid's direction. All three agents threw a glance at him, but the boy was looking at the playground across the field now, seemingly oblivious to the argument flowing around him.

Tony lowered his eyes to think. He ended up staring at the photos of the damn camp. "What about the outpost, the base you said you have down there," he questioned, turning his attention back to Kort. "You said it's not far from the cartel's border. Personnel stationed there must know the area."

Kort shifted and reluctantly spoke. "That base is run by a team of ex-Rangers and other Special Forces personnel who no longer exist. They're ghosts, you understand me?" He looked to Ziva, and she nodded. "Men stationed at the base can get you to the border and pick you up, but they would be useless as guides on Calera land. They never go into the area on foot. They don't even fly over it. We want Gibbs' intel if we can get it, which means I'm willing to help you. But if you want to use our base you'll do it our way. That means you go in with Gray."

A moment of silence and Kort moved on, the argument apparently settled in his mind. "The smaller your team is, the less chance you have of detection. I'd advise two agents, the ones among you with the most field experience."

"Well if we take _him_ ," Tony glared at the kid, "our team will definitely be small. Suppose Daddy is all for it, signs the permission slip, and we actually agree to this insanity. What if Gibbs is injured when we make it to him? How are we supposed to protect him and your pint-size pal here on the hike back to the Calera border? We'd have two able bodies and two defenseless!"

Kort leaned forward. His usual arrogance twisted into something else, voice turned slow and ugly. "You're the ones who want to make an extraction from no-man's land. The insanity is yours. You can leave Gibbs in that camp to rot for all I care. But if you go through with a rescue you will need him," Kort tilted his head toward the boy at his side. "You will protect him with your own lives or you will die."

Kort sat back in the silence, shifted to a slightly less apocalyptic tone. "Anyway, as I said. Gray will be a guide only. He won't be involved in any use of force."

"He's going to extract Gibbs from the camp without force?" Ziva said. "Does he have a magic wand?"

Kort gave her a sarcastic little smile. "He can move through the camp undetected. That's all the magic he'll need."

Ziva turned her gaze to the boy, staring at him hard. He sensed it and swung his attention back to the table to meet her eyes.

"Why are you here?" she asked him seriously. "Are you being coerced?"

Kort tensed. But, strangely, didn't interrupt. Gray looked at her calmly, face a blank slate. "No."

She waited for more, but he'd already turned away again.

Ziva shook her head. "We cannot take a child on this mission. It would be illegal to involve him."

Kort chuckled bitterly. "How noble, David. Wherever did that come from? Something you picked up from Gibbs?"

Ziva stared at him with disgust. She longed to get up, to walk away. But the satellite images spread before her kept her still. If Kort had really found Gibbs . . . And he had access to a base nearby . . .

"And you always operate by the letter of the law, don't you, _Officer David_?" Kort pressed. "No matter the consequences. Some things never change, hm?"

Ziva pulled back subtly, a flinch. Tony frowned, glancing between them.

And then, instead of shoving his insults back down his throat where they belonged, Ziva looked away. But she wasn't cowed for long. She took a steadying breath and considered Kort with a flat stare. "It is Agent David now. And I follow the code set forth by US law."

"Fortunately for Gibbs," Kort said, "there is no Colombian law regarding the age of informants. And that is what Gray will be on this mission. A source of information. The fact that he will accompany you is immaterial. Of course, an armed intrusion into a sovereign state with the intent to trespass on the property of one of its citizens actually is illegal. But I understand you like to pick and choose."

"This is absurd," Ziva muttered.

"Furthermore," Kort drawled, "on foreign soil and in certain situations the CIA is authorized to act outside the normal parameters of the law. This is one such situation. 'Get out of jail free cards,' I think Gibbs calls them? He certainly isn't above using them himself when he finds it convenient." Kort cocked his head, mockingly thoughtful. "But then, if memory serves, neither are you, David."

Ziva said nothing. Just stared at the man across from her as if he were the scum of the earth.

Kort raised an eyebrow. "But by all means, if you would rather not accept my assistance in retrieving your precious leader," he shrugged. "You can take the fact that you now know where Gibbs is, and _exactly_ what he will be experiencing in the weeks to come, as a . . . gift," he smiled slowly at them. "On the house."

Tony's own anger actually paled with a glimpse of Ziva's fury. Punching Kort was one thing. Tony could get behind that. Murdering him in the middle of the day, in a public park, was a tiny bit different.

He made an effort to steer the conversation back to practicalities. "Your 'help' doesn't strike me as too helpful, Kort. You said it would be suicide if we're detected on Calera land, but there's no way we could get in and out of there without detection. Even if your boy here pulls off his magical extraction, they're going to notice that Gibbs is missing before we make it past the Calera border."

Kort rolled his eyes yet again. "Yes, Dinozzo, good catch. Well done." Tony had a sudden, fiercely vivid daydream involving Kort's eyes rolling into the back of his head and staying there. "You need to get into and out of the camp without detection," Kort carried blithely on. _God he's snide why don't I just punch him in the face and get it over with worked so well last time Ziva will totally –_ "But you should be able to evade patrols if you're already into the jungle by the time the alarm is raised. Tracking anything through that shit is damn difficult."

That last was said sincerely, and Tony's curiosity dragged him out of his bloody fantasy. Kort sounded like he was speaking from experience.

Gray reached up suddenly, clapped a hand on Kort's shoulder. "Well, Daddy, this has been fun. But I've got to get going." He looked at Tony. "You know how Mummy worries."

A strange look crossed Kort's face. Ziva assessed it curiously. Was that pain?

"Gray – " Kort began, but was cut off. The boy was already standing.

"Let me know what you decide," he said. He gave Tony the not-smile again, sending a chill down his spine, and nodded in Ziva's direction without actually looking at her. Then he turned and strolled away across the field, leaving the three agents sitting at the table.

"Look," Kort broke the silence with a sigh. He was still watching the kid, voice far away and, for once, without a trace of sarcasm. "Whether or not you want to go through with this is your decision, but you better make it fast. As I said, there's no point in going in if you don't reach him before the interrogator. You can keep the photos," he nodded to the table as he stood to leave, heading toward a car parked not too far from the NCIS sedan.

He paused just a few steps off and turned back to sneer at them.

"In the meantime, keep your bloody little cyberduo out of our files."

**x**

They sat at the table and watched Kort's car fade into the distance. Tony used a fingernail to pick at a peeling sliver of paint on the table top.

Since Gibbs wasn't around to be the bastard, Tony stepped up.

"What's he have on you, Ziva?"

"We should get back." She was still staring down the street Kort's car had traveled. "Abby and McGee may have something."

But she didn't move.

"Ziva."

"I don't want to use a child, Tony," she whispered. 

"I know."

They sat there for another minute, watching the end of a beautiful red sunset, feeling the weight of the unspoken settle around their shoulders.

_But if it's the only way . . ._

**x**

The drive back to NCIS was quiet, both agents turning every detail of what they'd just learned over in their minds. By the time they made it back to the Navy Yard night had fallen. Official business hours were over and the building was beginning to empty out.

They shut themselves in the lab, swore McGee and Abby to secrecy, and filled them in on their conversation with Kort. The cyberduo's research into the CIA's satellite imagery confirmed - or at least didn't contradict - what Kort told them about Gibbs' whereabouts.

After both teams revealed everything they knew, quiet descended on the group.

"McGee?" Tony finally asked.

"I don't think we have any choice but to . . . trust Kort." The last few words came out slowly, like a tourist taking his best shot at a foreign language.

"Ziva?"

"I agree," Ziva said after a moment. The vulnerability she'd shown in the park was tucked away now, nowhere to be seen. "It is not ideal, but if Kort is right about where Gibbs is we need to get to him as soon as possible. And that means playing by Kort's rules. We have no other leads, we have no time, and we certainly do not have the CIA's resources in that region."

Tony shook his head. "If we end up walking into some elaborate trap set up by the CIA, or some Colombian gang, Gibbs is going to kill us. Assuming we aren't already dead."

"Yes," Ziva agreed. "True. But I do not see what Kort or the Calera cartel would gain by sending us into a trap – we have no information that Gibbs does not, so why would they bother to capture or kill us? I have never operated in Colombia or Mexico," she said. "Do any of you have significant connections there?"

The group shook their heads.

Abby shifted from foot to foot. "Um, even if there's no trap, Gibbs is definitely going to kill you if you take a kid along to find him."

Everyone nodded. That went without saying.

"Alright," Tony breathed finally. He felt lightheaded. All of the choices in front of him were unacceptable. They couldn't stay here and leave Gibbs to die. But how could they go?

Is this what Gibbs felt when he was making decisions like this?

Then again, Leroy Jethro Gibbs would probably be able to do all this rescue stuff on his own, without Kort or a weird cold kid, or even Ziva . . .

Tony reminded himself that there came a time in every man's life when he just had to accept the painful truth that he wasn't ever going to be a professional ball player, movie star, ruler of his own planet, or Gibbs. Tony would muddle on as best he could, and that included accepting help like a normal mortal.

"Alright," he said again. "Ziva and I will go to Colombia. Ziva, take a few minutes to make a sketch of the kid for Abby. Abby, try to figure out who he is. Hook up with Metro PD and check their juvenile records. Look for gang and drug related arrests first. After the sketch I want you to figure out a couple of GPS locators that will be easy to hide. Make an extra one for Gibbs. McGee, put together a file of whatever intel we'll need on this op – whatever you can find. Follow the Somalia outline, we'll read it on the plane. I'll call Kort." And Vance.

Kort hung up almost immediately to arrange the flight and called Tony back fifteen minutes later. The no-name Rangers at the no-name base would outfit the agents with gear. Kort would send the best intel he had on the Calera camp to McGee so that he could include it in the file he was preparing. Their flight – another cargo plane out of Pax River, this time to Bogota – left in 5 hours.

Kort flat out refused Tony's offer of a GPS locator for the kid, saying it would be too dangerous if disaster struck and Gray was caught with it. That was true enough. Crawling around in a place you weren't supposed to be, with a sophisticated locator you weren't supposed to have, was proof positive that you were up to something hinky, no matter where you were or what you were doing.

That didn't change the fact that he and Ziva would be carrying them. It wasn't like the two agents would blend in anyway.

Three hours later they were as ready as they could be in the time they had. Abby injected them with tiny locators, totally unfazed by Tony's protests, then gathered him and Ziva into a hug and just about squeezed the life out of them. Before he pulled away Tony cupped her face in his hands and brushed away a few rogue tears, promising that he would bring Gibbs back – bring them all back.

After that they headed home to grab quick showers and clean clothes and, of course, give Ziva a chance to strap on her full arsenal. McGee drove them to the airport, swinging by Ziva's apartment first, then Tony's. Their third stop was to get the kid.

**x**

They picked Gray up at the same park where they'd met earlier that day. This time of night the field was dark and the streets were deserted and eerie. McGee pulled the car up into the murky light by the curb, idling between street lamps.

A moment later he emerged from the pitch black shadows of the trees. He had on worn black cargo pants and the same dark, long-sleeved hoodie he was in earlier. Gray slid into the backseat, slung a small black pack at his feet, and McGee pulled the car away from the curb, navigating the near empty streets to the Naval base.

Tony turned and studied the smooth, closed face beside him. Abby hadn't found any records connected to the kid, but she was still looking. No matter what she found, Tony wanted to know more about Kort's little pet before traipsing into the jungle after him.

Time to push some buttons. "Thanks for coming along with us, Gray. We really appreciate it."

No reaction at all.

"Want some water, buddy?" Tony held out a bottle. "Or would you rather have a soda? We've got both."

The boy kept looking out the window, but Tony caught a thin smile from his profile. "No thanks."

"Alrighty. Here, hold this for me while I put the soda back, will ya?" Tony held the bottle out, right over the kid's lap, but Gray didn't move to take it.

"Rather not," he said, a little edge of amusement there.

In the front seat Ziva and McGee glanced at each other, eyebrows raised.

"No problem." Tony slowly put the drinks back in the cooler at his feet. "So. Gray, huh? That your first name or family name?"

Kid didn't say anything. Didn't even look his way.

"Or a nickname? Gray? Can't help but notice that you've got gray eyes, too. That's kind of a coincidence."

Nothing.

Tony laughed. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay, I'll stop digging." He was quiet for a good five seconds. "Hey, Kort's not really your dad, is he?"

Gray didn't turn from watching the streetlights slide by the window, but he did answer that one, sort of. With a question of his own.

"Why? Worried about another permission slip?"

"Well, I don't know," Tony said lightly. He propped his elbow on the door next to him. "Depends on what your plans were for the week. Are you missing summer camp? I'd hate for you to miss camp. And I sure hope you're not ditching summer school. You'd need more than an extra note for that, right?"

Gray finally glanced over at him, long enough for Tony to see him roll his eyes. It was suspiciously Kort-like.

The agent cleared his throat, his voice more serious than it had been, eyes fixed on the shadowy face next to him. "So, Kort said no one else living knows the Calera terrain as well as you do. How'd that happen?"

Gray kept studying the world outside, uninterested in Tony and his questions. "How did what happen?"

He was in dangerous territory, Tony was well aware of that. The kid clearly spent time running around Calera land and had somehow gotten mixed up with the CIA. He had negligent parents at best. More likely . . .

"How did it happen that everyone else who knew the terrain is dead and you're alive," Tony pressed.

Risky to deliberately piss off the kid. But a reasonable thing to ask given where they were headed.

Gray finally faced him. "I think you'd better hope you never find out, Tony," he said mildly. "Don't you?" A beat, and the dead-cold eyes turned back to the window.

Tony leaned toward Ziva, sitting in the front seat. "Okay," he stage whispered. "Rumble in the Jungle Rule #1. First names from Little Smoky here are even worse than from Gibbs."

Ziva's eyes were closed and she looked asleep. But she responded just as Tony leaned back in his seat. "Perhaps it would be best not to antagonize him, then."

Tony glanced once more at the kid before leaning back and shutting his eyes. About forty minutes to go before they reached Pax River. He heard Gibbs' voice in his ear, telling him to rest while he had the chance.


	9. Ghost Base

McGee pulled the Charger right up to the plane, an enormous black shadow on a misty runway. Tony called Abby from the tarmac to check in on her Gray search.

"There's nothing, Tony. I searched Metro, nationally, internationally - the fact that he's so young narrows it down. I went through every photo database I have access to and got nada. I'll have a better shot when I get his prints. You're sending them back with McGee?"

"Ah, no," Tony said. "He was on to that."

"On to it?"

"He wouldn't touch anything, Abs. Never even took his hands out of his pockets. He was on to it."

"Wow." The fingerprint trick usually worked.

"Maybe we can lift them from the car? The door handle?" Abby wondered.

"Don't think so. When he got out he used his sleeve. If there were any prints there in the first place, which I kinda doubt, he wiped them out."

"Huh. Well, he does hang out with Kort. I don't know, Tony – if there was ever a file on him in any of the image databases it's gone now. With fingerprints it's a no brainer, but with just a sketch . . ."

"Yeah," Tony sighed. Ziva's composite was extremely accurate, but it was a long shot to hope the kid had a photo record in a government database. Even if he did have a juvie record, Kort could have had it erased. "Thanks anyway, Abs. See you in a few days."

"Tony," Abby said sharply.

"Yeah?"

The whine of the plane's engines started building in the background, but there was silence on the line. He pressed the headpiece into his ear. "Abby?"

Maybe a sniffle, and that made the casing of the cell phone creak in Tony's hand. Nothing sucked worse than being left behind. Waiting for the return - or just the news, if there would be no return. This was why Abby and Ducky got Nice Gibbs on a daily basis, and why Tony always made sure he was one of the ones to go. He didn't want to think about what it took to stay.

If he didn't talk fast the engines would drown him out. "We'll bring him back, Abby."

"And you too," she said quickly. "And Ziva."

His Schwarzenegger was way worse than his Connery, but he whipped it out anyway. "I'll be back."

She laughed through a stuffed up nose, but it wasn't real - just Abby going through the motions. "I'm holding you to that. Now go catch your flight, mister. Before they leave without you."

He shut the phone and waved to McGee. "Take Abby home tonight, Probie."

McGee nodded, stood by the car and watched as the rest of his team disappeared into the plane.

**x**

Tony secured himself loosely in the canvas straps next to Ziva, thinking sourly as he did so that he was spending way too much time lately on military flights. It might bring up warm and fuzzy Corps memories for Gibbs, but for Tony it was a not-so-happy reminder of his not-so-happy time in military school. Not that they'd flown around on military aircraft - just that everything at that school also seemed designed for maximum discomfort.

Which brought him back to the boy sitting on the opposite side of the plane. Gray had gotten out of the car without a word and boarded first, ignoring the crew, tying himself in expertly, bag secured in the netting beside him. Now his eyes were closed and he looked relaxed, even though the plane was rumbling like an earthquake.

Was the kid asleep? 

The engines revved and Ziva leaned toward him. "Anything from Abby?" she mouthed, nodding toward Gray.

Tony shook his head. He watched Ziva's eyes narrow, shifted over to speak directly into her ear. "What're you thinking?"

They were taxiing down the runway now, engines roaring, and he could barely hear himself. The kid couldn't have listened in at this point if they'd been using bullhorns.

"It does not matter," Ziva said after a moment. "We need him."

"But? C'mon, Ziva."

He could _see_ her sigh. "But I recognize what he is. Do not tell me you do not."

He shrugged uncomfortably, swaying with the motion of the plane lifting into the air.

Tony relied on the instincts he'd honed as a cop, which made him naturally suspicious of just about everyone he met. But he'd never developed the paranoid insight, the ugly awareness that seemed to drive Gibbs and Ziva, and he hoped he never did. It was what made it so difficult for the two of them to trust anyone, and he was pretty sure it wasn't worth it.

"His age means nothing, Tony." She looked at him seriously. "He is a killer. He - " She hesitated. "In Israel we would say he has blood in his eyes. He is a valuable asset yet Kort did not appear to be very worried about his safety, did you notice that? I think he will be able to protect himself," she said slowly, eyes troubled. "But he has no loyalty to us, and that means our lives are nothing to him. He is not a child as you understand them, Tony. You must not think of him like one."

She waited for Tony to nod.

"The enemies of Mossad recruited boys like that," she said, looking away. "And now we have done the same."

Ziva leaned down to her pack and pulled out a flashlight, beginning to read the file that McGee and Kort put together. She handed the pages to Tony as she finished them and was silent for the rest of the flight.

Tony, obviously, wasn't. They were just preparing to land in Bogota, and he was complaining loudly about the lack of stewardesses on military flights, when he first noticed Gray's eyes on him. The kid was looking at him. It was weird.

He noticed it again on the runway in Bogota, standing next to a rusty old puddle jumper that looked older than Gibbs and barely big enough to lift the three of them off the ground. Tony chatted up the mechanic fueling the plane, mentioning that he'd once punched the guy who'd arranged the puddle jumper flight. He wondered aloud if this was his punishment.

If so, Tony thought it was excessive.

He turned around to scan for the pilot and locked eyes with the kid. Gray was looking at him. Again.

And then again, in the ragged little town where the puddle jumper left them, where they waited for the Black Hawk that was flying out from the base to pick them up. Tony had been bemoaning the humidity to Ziva and offered, generously, to buy her a new bikini.

The kid kept looking at him. Focusing on him completely when Tony was just going on like he always did, about stuff that didn't deserve any focus. The kid didn't say anything. Just looked, a creepy intensity in his gray eyes. It was like a Gibbs stare but colder, empty. It set Tony's teeth on edge.

Finally the helicopter arrived and they climbed in for their last flight. The kid was just as nonchalant as he'd been in the cargo plane, though this time he nodded to the pilot.

They lifted off from the village in a swirl of dust and took off to the northwest, flying into the evening sun. The village fields fell away and the ground beneath them was swallowed up by an impenetrable green canopy of trees, broken only by the lazy rivers and smooth ponds. The jungle looked like a rolling green ocean stretching in every direction.

Tony knew the chopper was flying fast, but with no landmarks beneath them it was hard to tell they were moving at all. He stared at the endless trees, wondering how the schemes of Paloma Reynosa had dragged him and Ziva out to this no-man's land. They'd taken Gibbs' wife and daughter from him twenty years ago. Now, if this op went to hell, Gibbs and the team he'd spent ten years putting together would be destroyed as well.

Tony glanced at Ziva. She was scanning the faceless canopy beneath them fiercely, and he knew she shared his thoughts.

This had gone way too far. When and if they all got back to Washington, they would seriously get down to the business of dealing with the Reynosa family.

Almost three hours passed before the pilot signaled that they would be landing soon. A minute later the trees beneath them fell away. The jungle had been cleared for a few hundred yards in every direction. A sorry looking collection of thin, gunmetal gray buildings sat in the center of the field, a perimeter surrounding the structures cordoned off by barbed wire. Platforms closed in by sandbags sat at each corner, black barrels of fixed guns poking out through breaks in the bags.

As they circled in and touched down, two figures in olive green t-shirts and black fatigue pants emerged from one of the buildings and approached, shielding their eyes, standing just outside the worst of the whirling dust. Tony, Ziva and the kid hopped out. The two men started forward again when the chopper's blades began to slow.

In the sudden quiet one of the men stepped close and looked the boy over. "Gray. Fuck me, it's really you."

Gray gave the man a very faint grin. "Rodge," he said. "Didn't expect to see you. Pete," he looked to the second man, shifting the bag on his shoulder. "Been awhile."

"No kidding," Pete said seriously. "What are you doing here?"

Rodge stepped even closer to Gray. He was a huge black guy with military tats on his forearms and another covering a bulging bicep. Tony and Ziva watched, incredulous, as the man took the teen gently by the shoulders and stooped down to eye level. "Everything alright? Still hooked up with Shorty?"

Gray nodded, face already back to blank slate. "Yeah, it's all good."

"Well then, tell me again what the hell you're doing here? Thought they revoked your lifetime fun pass."

"Yeah." Gray stepped out of the almost embrace, the man's hands falling easily away. "Not staying long, just giving a tour." He tilted a head toward Tony and Ziva.

The men turned their attention to them, and the silence stretched.

Night would fall soon, they were dusty and tired, and Tony was damn nervous. Their drop-off at the edge of Calera land was scheduled before daybreak the next morning. The thing was, nervous usually meant hyper for Tony, and that meant a lot of talking. But he stood there silently, watching and waiting, somewhere between too exhausted and too incredibly curious to do much else.

Rodge and Pete looked the two agents over thoroughly and turned back to Gray.

"Don't want to know, do I?" Rodge said.

"Nope."

"Well c'mon in, I'll brief you on the latest doings." The kid and Rodge walked toward the building, the older man talking easily.

Pete watched them go and waved a hand at Tony and Ziva. He had warm brown eyes, a big smile and a shaved head. "You're in time to clean up and eat before we get you outfitted. Heard you need gear."

They stepped into the building, glancing into doorways as they passed. There were conference rooms filled with rough furniture and scruffy men, all gathered around tables spread with maps and spreadsheets and glowing laptops. One corner of the building was an airy hangar. A couple of mechanics had a mud-encrusted truck propped up, spotlights shining into its guts. In another corner there was a makeshift gym, built entirely from what looked like two-by-fours and iron pipes salvaged from a construction site. A wiry guy in black shorts was sweating through a solitary workout.

They were shown to bunks and had a few minutes to grab showers in tepid water. Then Pete briefed them on the specifics of their departure the following morning.

Finally they were pointed toward the mess. Gray had disappeared with his Ranger buddy, but Ziva and Tony found him again at a table outside the kitchen. The kid had a huge bowl of some kind of stew, along with plates of rice and beans and plantains in front of him. A dish of banana pudding sat off to the side. He was shoveling it in.

Rice, beans, bananas. Some slow-cooked mystery meat. It was a variation of the same meal they'd been offered at every stop, featuring yet more bananas served in one increasingly odd way or another. It was the nature of military food. Some supply clerk in DC probably bought ten tons of bananas last month instead of the one ton he meant to order, and now the cooks were working them into every conceivable dish from Bogota to Baghdad.

Ziva and Tony grabbed plates and filled them from pots on the big stove. They sat down side by side across from the kid.

As he settled at the table Tony grumbled about the repetitive cuisine and put voice to the hope that he wasn't going to turn into a banana before he got out of Colombia. And it happened again - Gray paused in the back-and-forth shovel motion of his fork and did the looking thing.

Tony, really on edge now, finally called him on it.

"What are you looking at, Smoky?" It was the aggressive, mocking tone he'd cultivated in the interrogation room. The one used to deal with punks who thought they were tough.

Gray blinked. Tony and Ziva hadn't spoken to him since the ride through DC. Actually, Tony thought, Ziva hadn't spoken to him at all since that one question at the park.

"Why," the kid asked lightly, "making you nervous?"

It was almost a taunt. A completely normal, dipshitty, teenage testosterone challenge. It was the least nerve-inducing thing the kid had said yet.

"No," Tony relaxed a little. "I just want to know why you keep looking at me like that. I think it'd be best to know these things before you take me into the jungle and have your way with me. You're not into cannibalism, are you? Cults? Ever seen _The Temple of Doom_?"

Gray gave him the look again, and maybe a little . . . smile. It was gone as soon as it appeared, so it was hard to tell. Still, it was Tony's turn to blink.

"You're funny," Gray said. Then he picked up his tray and walked away.

You're funny?

Ziva looked up from her banana pudding to watch him go. "You have noticed he carries a weapon?"

"Yeah," Tony said absently. "Small of the back, semi-automatic."

"You better hope he likes funny people," she said.

**x**

After dinner Pete led Ziva and Tony into a room full of equipment lockers. They were outfitted with a light collection of moisture wicking gear and a heavy assortment of guns and ammo.

"You've been in it before?" Pete asked.

Tony glanced at Ziva. "Sort of," he said. "There was more sand last time around."

Ziva smiled at him, then went back to adjusting the straps of the waterproof bags they'd been given.

The Ranger paused in selecting canteens and water purification tablets for them. "You've never been in the jungle?" He looked at Ziva. "You?"

Ziva shook her head. "I have carried out missions in many different environments, but never in the tropics. At least, not in the wilderness."

"Huh," Pete said. "Well, guess there aren't a lot of places as remote as our little corner of paradise, are there?" He dropped the canteens into their bags and turned toward a shelf of antibiotics.

Ziva sighed. "That is true. It is worrying that we will be so far from support."

Pete grunted. "No such thing as support on Calera land. Not unless you're one of them."

Ziva checked a clip of ammunition for the NCIS pistol she'd strapped to her back before they left the Navy Yard. "We have been told that our best strategy is simply to remain undetected."

Pete gave them a long look. "They know the terrain and they've got the firepower. We've done threat assessments for the area, you know? If you went in hot and were actually a threat the cartel would call up their allies. We estimate a force of 100,000 would be needed to secure the territory involved. Even then casualty rates would be astronomical. So," Pete frowned, still shuffling boxes of pills. "Unless a lot more of you are coming I'd say going in under the radar is your best bet."

Tony and Ziva nodded. They'd read the same cheerful assessments in the files McGee put together for them.

"More used to operating in urban environments myself," Tony said. "Don't like to get too far from the nearest donut shop."

The Ranger grinned. "Well, if you want donuts where you're going you'll have to hump them in. Guess a lot of guys these days are more used to urban contact than anything else." He glanced curiously at Ziva. "Ladies too, of course."

She nodded absently and stepped toward the racks of weapons lining one wall, looking them over like a kid surveying a candy store. "We may select from these?" she asked.

Pete nodded, and she perused the choices for a minute before removing a stubby assault rifle and its grenade launcher attachment. She handed it to Tony. "Check to see if this will fit into your pack," she murmured, already back at the racks. She selected a rifle and scope for herself, then pounds of ammo for both of them.

The mini assault rifle just wedged into his bag at a slant. Most of the rest of the room went to its clips. Several pairs of socks followed. A top compartment was stuffed full of power bars, water purification tablets, and a very thin roll of toilet paper.

Tony sat down on a bench, watching as Pete picked through bare bones First Aid kits.

"I know I can handle the wilderness bit. Or unfriendlies," Tony said. "I've been up against bad guys with big guns and I can suck up a few days in the trees. The two of them together, though. That's new." He frowned and shook his head, staring off into space. "Forget the evil overlord and his army. McGee gave us a list of the poisonous animals crawling around in those trees. Looked like the casting call for _Halloween 6_."

Pete grinned again at Tony's light tone, but then the humor slipped away. "You can get into trouble real easy in there. All sorts of trouble, believe me. Just get in, do your business, and get out as fast as possible. Don't think about anything else," he said. Then he nodded seriously to Tony. "And you're right. Better steer clear of the wildlife."

After a moment's consideration he dropped something that looked like antivenin into a kit.

"That sounds like good advice," Ziva smiled. "Thank you for your help." She hefted her black bag over her shoulder.

Tony stood too. "Any other words of wisdom?"

Pete paused in rummaging through a huge sack of powdered gatorade packets. It looked like he was giving them all the lemon-limes. He examined one, fingering the foil edge as if looking for a tear. "What's your connection to Gray?"

Ziva and Tony glanced at each other. "We were only put into contact with him about twenty-four hours ago," Ziva said. "He is . . a friend of an associate."

The Ranger tossed one last pack of lemon-lime powder into Tony's bag. "And that associate would be Kort, huh?" Pete shook his head. "That guy gets around."

"Sure does," Tony said, lifting his own pack. He followed Pete and Ziva out of the locker room and back toward their bunks.

Pete left them at the door to their room. "Get some sleep. I'll be around to wake you at 0330."

Tony glanced into the room. There were four empty bunks with thin gray blankets tucked around them arranged against the walls, a small sink bolted into the corner. He looked over the tops of the beds and frowned. His and Ziva's bags were where they'd left them earlier, but Gray's stuff hadn't appeared. He turned quickly back to Pete.

"Hey," he called down the corridor.

The Ranger paused and looked back at him.

"Kid's not staying here?"

Pete huffed, brown eyes laughing. "Gray gets a VIP room. 'Night," he nodded, and disappeared around the corner.

They didn't bother to turn the light on, just climbed into their bunks by the glow from the hall. Tony reached out to shut the door from his bed, throwing the room into dark.

"Goodnight, Z," he said.

"Layla tov, Tony."

Tony smiled. She'd taught him that on their first undercover op, years ago.

He didn't think he would be able to sleep, but knew that he needed to try. Who could tell when he would have another chance? Tomorrow they walked into the unknown.

The situation pressed into his mind like a physical weight. Tony led the team now, the decision to come here had been his call. Ziva's life, Gibbs life, and now the kid's life were all his responsibility.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm his mind, but it had other ideas. He flashed almost immediately back to his last conversation with Vance. Tony'd called him at home and very briefly, very vaguely filled him in on the plan, in a roundabout way. The director needed to maintain deniability.

There'd been a moment of silence on the line and Tony'd felt a rush of panic, wondering if Vance would try to stop them from going. But when he spoke the director's words were as neutral as his voice. All he'd said was, "Are you sure about this, Dinozzo?"

He didn't mean are you sure about _the plan,_ because of course they weren't. The plan sucked. What he meant was, are you sure you're willing to die for this? To be responsible for Ziva's death? Do you even think you have a chance?

Tony honestly didn't know the answers to those questions. He only knew that he couldn't sit back and allow Gibbs to disappear forever. If they didn't go for Gibbs now he would be lost for good, lost totally. His body would never be found. They would never even know how he died. It would haunt them all.

Tony didn't really know if they had a chance or if this was a suicide mission. But he knew they had to try.

So he'd told the director he was sure.

"Alright," Vance said simply. "We'll be pulling for you. Good luck."

A thousand miles away, lying under the scratchy gray blanket, the words echoed in his mind. His exhaustion reached up then and sucked him down into the black, and he knew no more.


	10. In It

They woke and sat up instantly when the door opened. Pete entered the room and set a tray on one of the empty beds. There were two cups of coffee, eggs, bacon, and thick slices of bread with chunks of tomato and cheese.

"0330," he said, and walked out.

They gulped down the food. Tony got up and carried his bag to the shower room. He rinsed off and slathered himself with the industrial strength bug repellant Abby gave them, and dressed in the gray and black fatigues and black long sleeve t-shirt that Pete picked out the night before. He pulled on thick socks and laced up his own boots from home. Finally he used the toilet, watching it flush and wondering if this was the last time he was ever going to see plumbing.

When he walked back to their room, Ziva was dressed and pulling back her hair into a ponytail. She'd straightened the bunks and folded the t-shirt and pants she'd been wearing since they left DC, placing them at the foot of the bed she'd slept in. Her wallet and phone were on top. Tony added his personal things to the pile. But he removed the compass clipped to his key chain and slipped it into a pocket.

Ziva returned in under two minutes, slinging the rifle she'd selected the night before securely over her shoulders, then adding the pack.

"Ready?" Tony asked.

She nodded.

They hesitated, looking at each other.

"Well. We've got to move fast." 

Ziva smiled a little. "And quietly."

"No authority, no jurisdiction. No time."

Her smile got big and she nodded firmly. "We don't come back without Gibbs."

"Agreed."

They turned and walked out the door to the helicopter waiting for them. A team of just two, but as solid as any team could be.

The night was black except for the stars and a thin moon hanging on the horizon. The outline of the Black Hawk was just visible against the faint light.

The night air at this altitude was cool and Ziva shivered a little. She couldn't help but tip back her head and admire the sky. The stars were breathtaking, reminding her of training missions that took her into the desert when she was young, when her team slept in the open, far from the lights of cities. She had rarely seen them so bright.

Tony turned toward the figure leaning against the outside wall of the building. It was Rodge, face set into hard shadowed lines. He didn't move to acknowledge them.

Rodge didn't like them, that was clear enough, and Tony figured he knew why. These guys had some kind of connection to Gray, and using a kid to do what they were about to do - well, Tony didn't like it either.

Normally he didn't give a rat's ass what anyone thought of him on the job. And it was clear from the beginning that there would be no rescue for them from this base if something went wrong – they were on their own once they entered Calera land. Still, they would rely on the guys from the base to pick them up when they made it out with Gibbs, assuming everything went according to plan.

It would be nice if the men here didn't actively hate their guts.

"You know, we asked if there was anyone here who could guide us to the camp, even drop us nearby," Tony said. He kept his eyes on the helicopter. "We were told we had to take the kid."

Rodge didn't move to look at him, but he did respond, grudgingly, after a moment. "Gray makes his own decisions." He pushed off the wall and walked toward the helicopter. "They'll be out in a minute."

Tony realized only when the man climbed into the cockpit that Rodge would be their pilot.

When the helo's interior lights came on and the blades started to move, the door to the building behind them opened and Pete and Gray stepped out. The kid carried the same small pack over his shoulders that he brought with him from Washington. The hoodie had been replaced by a dark long-sleeved t-shirt.

There was something stubby poking up over his shoulder . . . Tony recognized the shape. It was the short barrel of an assault rifle, a lightweight German model – he hadn't gone undercover against an arms dealer for nothing – one with a hollow stock that could fold in. It was just short enough to fit comfortably against Gray's narrow back.

Ziva caught Tony's eyes, and the look they shared was bleak.

Gray hopped into the rear while Pete waited by the door to see Ziva and then Tony secured. The Ranger put a hand on Tony's arm as he was getting in, leaning close as the blades began to beat in earnest over their heads.

"Still want my advice?" he shouted into the agent's ear, and pulled back to look into Tony's eyes. His own were bright in the white glow cast by the taillight. Tony nodded, startled, and Pete leaned in again.

"Stay close to Gray," he said.

Pete pulled back and looked hard at Tony again as the blades reached their rhythm above them, drowning out the possibility of any other words. But the other man's gaze wasn't really warm anymore, and the message in them was clear. _Don't come back without him_.

Tony met the eyes and nodded, and then he climbed in to sit next to Ziva. Pete moved into the copilot's seat and seconds later they were airborne.

Tony didn't know how long they sat there, enveloped in the noise of the helicopter, the whole world a roaring shadow. The jungle below them was a seamless black, the faint green glow of the instrument panels the only light in the cabin. At some point Gray leaned over and tapped his foot to get his attention. He did the same to Ziva and held up a pair of night vision goggles. The agents turned to dig their own night gear out of their bags.

A minute later the helicopter lurched, throwing Tony's stomach up into his throat. He looked out the door through his goggles and wished he hadn't. The ground swooped up at him through the green light. They were closing in on an abandoned field.

The agents tensed. This site was chosen because it was along one of the routes frequently traveled by the choppers moving in and out of the base. Flying through the area shouldn't raise any alarms. But touching down was out of the ordinary. The drop would be dark and fast.

Gray unhooked his harness and the agents followed suit. He moved by Tony to crouch at the door just before they rocked to the ground. The boy was out the door in an instant and running. Ziva slipped out and ran after him and Tony ran after her, too quick to think about it. The air around him swirled with dust and he struggled to keep his eyes on Ziva's green-black form, heading for a line of trees at the edge of the field.

Behind him the helo lifted away and faded into the background. It disappeared altogether as they closed in on the trees, and Tony could suddenly hear again. His boots hitting the ground, the whisper of tall grass against his legs, his own harsh breath. Gray waited for them, crouched in the brush at the edge of the field. As soon as Tony reached them the boy stood and was moving again, not running now but trotting, steady and silent through the trees. Tony and Ziva followed, quiet and swift as they could be, putting as much distance between themselves and their noisy arrival as possible.

Just yards in from the field the jungle closed in, a black wall even with night vision, thick canopy shutting out the night sky and any source of light. Gray skirted that line, avoiding the exposure of the fields without giving up the light they offered, sticking to the concealing border of the trees. Occasionally they would slow and move cautiously through pitch black, and Tony realized that they were hopping from field to field, never moving into true wilderness.

The first strange minutes faded into the first hour. Tony thought about nothing but keeping Ziva in sight, keeping quiet, staying alert to movement in his peripheral. The movement - there was a lot of it. Nocturnal animals and their freaky noises keeping him on edge. The high, pissed-off shrieks over their heads were the worst. Tony was sure that echoing shrieker was horribly carnivorous. And probably thinking about dropping down on top of him to get a taste. There were little things rustling at his feet, too, scurrying out of their path. Wings thrummed against the air and birds crashed through the canopy above them. Well, Tony assumed they were birds. And always there was the high soft whine of the bugs. Those were carnivorous without a doubt.

Ahead of him Ziva stopped and crouched. Tony came up behind her left shoulder, halting about ten feet back. Gibbs had taught them not to crowd in close, it was engrained. Twenty feet out Gray's thin outline sat motionless. The boy shifted and looked back at them. He held out a hand, palm flat and up. _Stay_.

The two agents nodded and the boy turned and vanished into the night. Tony held his breath, listening. Gray reappeared almost instantly, crooking a finger. _Come._ He turned and headed into the trees at a different angle than they traveled before. Tony wondered what exactly they were skirting around.

Gradually they wound deeper into the trees, leaving the fields behind. The calls of birds became more frequent and, incredibly, louder. Tony crouched when Ziva did and saw her reach up to remove her goggles. He did the same and realized that the night had faded into a deep blue dawn. He stuffed the goggles into his pack and they were moving again.

The light beneath the trees shifted from a shadowy gray-blue to pale green, morning beginning in earnest. Gray moved confidently through the trees. He wasn't looking around, wasn't navigating by any landmarks that Tony could see, but apparently followed a route that made sense to him. Tree after tree, mile after mile.

Occasionally Tony glanced at his compass to get a sense of their direction. They moved south at first, then southwest. The ground was lumpy but easy to move through, the trees too tall and thick to allow for much undergrowth.

As the world around them brightened they started to climb uphill, through rougher terrain. They had discussed this the night before with Pete. Rough terrain meant fewer people, no vehicles, less chance that they would stumble across anyone else. Pete had warned them that Gray would stick to rough ground when he could, and even inspected their boots and made sure they had plenty of moleskin to stick over blisters.

The sun was just past its high point and the air felt muggy and warm when Ziva pulled up in front of Tony once again. Gray had stopped. They watched the kid sit, lean against a tree, dig through his pack. The spot was sheltered, surrounded not only by trees but also by low shrubs and a lot of grassy undergrowth. It took a few seconds for it to click - after eight hours of movement, they were taking a break.

Tony and Ziva dropped to the ground. The kid pulled out a packet of gatorade and his canteen, ripping open the packet and dumping the powder in. It was orange, Tony noticed – the best flavor. He guessed only VIP guests at Ghost Base got it.

Gray looked up at them as he screwed shut the canteen and shook it lightly. His eyes locked onto Tony's and he extended an arm, holding out the empty foil. "You want it?" he mocked. Here in the yellow light of the forest his eyes were luminous, the palest green-gray.

Of course he'd been named for them.

Tony wanted more than ever to know his real name. But collecting fingerprint evidence wasn't exactly high on his list of priorities at the moment. He grinned, acknowledging his earlier deceit – well, attempted deceit. "I'll take a raincheck."

Ziva pulled back the wrapper on a power bar and Tony did the same. Gray shoved the empty packet into his pack, took a long swig from his canteen, and studied the two agents as they gulped water and calories.

Tony had just caught the kid at it when Gray stood. "Taking a leak," he said, and disappeared into the bushes a few yards away. He was back a minute later and Ziva and Tony took their own turns.

Gray watched them come and go, and it finally occurred to Tony that he was checking on their status. When Tony returned, their guide stood again without a word and continued up the side of the hill, moving just as fast as he had before.

* * *

 

_Tony: Alright. We've got to move fast._

_Ziva: And quietly._

_Tony: No authority, no jurisdiction, no time._

_Ziva: We do not get back on this plane without Gibbs._

_Tony: Agreed._

_\- NCIS: Rule Fifty-One_


	11. Watch

Hours later they were still making good time, chasing the sun setting right into their eyes. Then Gray jerked to a halt and held up a fist. The agents trailing him stopped mid-step.

A few seconds of stillness. And then the kid was climbing back up the hill he'd just been leading them down, motioning for them to move as well. The gesture was fierce - alarmed.

Ziva set her feet firmly into the side of the hill, hands on the spongy ground, and held her body low to keep from slipping with each step. They'd scrambled halfway up the slope before Tony could hear it. A low vibration that stood out from the rustling leaves and the weird bird calls.

The rumble was only a little louder when Gray dropped to the ground and was still. Ziva and Tony followed him down anyway, pulling out the pistols at their backs. The engine swelled instantly - it was a truck, rumbling through the ravine they'd been about to enter.

Tony could see a thick black antenna, jerking as the wheels rolled over uneven ground, and then the green canvas canopy of a troop truck. The three of them lay motionless as the vehicle lurched awkwardly over the rough ground, passed out of sight, and finally faded away.

For awhile Gray didn't move, and a weird silence dropped back down around them. The birds had retreated as well, and everything was still as it hadn't been since that morning, when the helicopter retreated and left them in the field.

Tony strained to listen, to hear whatever the kid heard. A rhythmic scraping noise floated up to them. A moment later, a faint voice, calling out. A short reply. The rustling faded, following the truck, until there was nothing but the natural sounds of the jungle swelling around them again.

it was only then Gray flowed silent, like a living shadow, into a crouch. He held up his palm again to Ziva and Tony and moved slowly along the hillside – not heading down into the ravine now, but parallel to it.

The agents tracked him with their eyes until they couldn't see him anymore.

Tony's gaze swept the brush surrounding him, trying to penetrate the green. His palms were damp and the butt of his gun felt perilously slick in his hands. Sweat trickled down the side of his face and along his back.

His wrists itched and he glanced down to see tiny blood red spiders crawling up his arms. He looked back into the trees, searching for movement on a more human scale, hoping nothing as small as those spiders could be seriously poisonous.

An eternity later Gray emerged from the undergrowth below and waved them forward. He'd zig-zagged down into the little valley and cleared the path back up to them. They stood to follow him, muscles stiff.

It was deep twilight now, getting harder and harder to see. They crested the next hill and Tony caught a glint of something through the trees. It was water, catching the last rays of the sun. He thought back to the satellite photo Kort had given them and remembered the twisting waterways dissecting the jungle.

They turned and began to walk along the side of the hill, following the water's route until Gray motioned to stop and wait. Then he began picking his way through the trees, heading down to the riverbank.

The water was brown and moved more rapidly here. It was also narrower than it had been, maybe forty yards across. Tony and Ziva crouched to rest, scanning the trees around them for movement, keeping an eye on Gray.

Gray moved slowly to the edge of the tree line, sat motionless for several minutes. It was twilight now, and difficult to see him in the failing light. Then he stepped beyond the trees and to the shore of the river, turning and scanning the shadows and the water before retreating back into the trees.

When he waved for Tony and Ziva to join him they scrambled cautiously down to meet him and stopped, as he had, in the shelter of the trees closest to the shore.

The kid was pulling up his socks and tucking the legs of his pants into the tops of his boots. He stuffed his t-shirt into his pants and cinched the belt tight, locking the shirt in place, and looked up to catch the agents staring at him. He grinned. "Leeches," he mouthed.

Tony looked away with a grimace.

The dark expanse of water looked exposed. An easy place for a patrol to spot them, even in the fading light. And now Tony had confirmation that there were disgusting things lurking in there. Somehow he was sure that leeches weren't the only creatures preying on anyone stupid enough to venture into that water.

Tony bent to stuff his own pants into his boots, intensely glad they hadn't spent much time prepping for this op. Sometimes it was better not to know. If they had to cross that river to get to Gibbs, he'd rather not have a real clear picture of whatever might come along and chew off his leg while he was at it.

Gray leaned toward them. "Five minute intervals, one at a time," he whispered. Then he was moving into the water. He walked slowly, smoothly, and in the fading light and dark river, soon looked like just another shadow.

Gray was shorter than Ziva and even more slender. The agents watched the water come up to his chest and hold there through the slight rapids moving in the center of the river. Then it was waist deep, then to his knees, until he disappeared into the brush on the far side. They listened hard and stared at the opposite shore, but there was no sound beyond the softly moving water, the buzz of insects and the whoops of birds.

Ziva counted five minutes and followed, slipping soundlessly into the water. Tony held his breath as he watched her make her way across. By the time she was at the halfway point he'd lost her in the dark.

He counted five minutes and snuck into the river, the water warm, pulling at his legs with surprising force. The kid must have just held steady in it. Tony walked as quickly as he could without making any noise, the open sky above him disconcerting after a day spent under a canopy of leaves. He stepped lightly, shifting his weight to keep his feet from getting sucked too far into the mud. Then he was moving up the far shore, out of the water and into the low brush, and finally beyond it, into the trees.

Ziva whispered to him and he found the two of them a few yards to his right. Tony paused to fish his night vision goggles out of his pack and to chug the last of the gatorade in his canteen.

They moved parallel to the river for several miles, using the little moonlight filtering through the trees along the shore to navigate. Then they came to a smaller branch of water and started to follow that. Tony checked his compass. They were moving west again.

Finally Gray paused a few feet from a downed tree and abruptly sat down. A break in the trees allowed a little more light here and the night vision was almost uncomfortably bright. All three lifted their goggles to test their eyes. The sliver of moon was just enough to see by. The agents sank down gratefully to rest, putting their backs together to keep an eye on their surroundings.

Tony's legs had ached earlier, but he was well beyond that now. His feet throbbed and his shoulders stung from the weight of the pack. The muscles in his thighs were iron. He felt pretty much like he had after the meanest of his college ball practices, when he would puke after practice and go home to collapse for twelve hours. 

Gray dug out several power bars and practically swallowed them whole. Tony's stomach had felt like a ravenous pit bull was clawing around in it for hours. He pulled out three bars and chewed them all at once, looking around. They were sitting about ten feet from the water, just beyond the swampy growth that clogged the shore. He was only halfway through his dinner when he jumped. There was a . . . _sliding_ noise about a foot from his knee, something moving through the darkness under a fallen tree. He stared, frozen, as a flat scaled head slithered through a patch of moonlight.

It was a snake. A really big snake, as thick around as Tony's bicep. He edged back, nudging Ziva on the way. She turned, and he could tell when she saw it. She joined him in shifting back, eyes wide.

"Gray!" Tony hissed. It was heading right toward the kid.

Gray glanced from the agents to the snake. It practically brushed past him. 

"Harmless," he said offhandedly, and tipped back his canteen to drain it. Then he climbed to his feet and stepped over the log next to him, snake and all. "Back in a second," he muttered, and disappeared into the trees.

Tony watched him go, feeling about as jumpy as he ever had in his life. "That kid is . . ." he trailed off.

"I agree," Ziva said firmly.

When Gray returned they crossed the smaller river, repeating the same process as before. When Tony reached the other side and crept into the trees, Gray took out his canteen and dropped in a purifying tablet. "Water's cleaner here than it will be for awhile," he said.

They filled their canteens one at a time, fitting the interiors with filters to keep the most disgusting bits of river muck out. The water tasted foul, and Ziva determinedly didn't think about whatever was flowing into the lip of her canteen. The agents popped more of the antibiotics they'd begun at the camp.

They began to climb in earnest, sticking to ridges that let some of the moon trickle in and light their way. The night teemed with insects, buzzing around their faces and flying up Tony's nose. Big flapping wings broke through the leaves above them, scurrying sounds darted through the undergrowth at their feet. Sometimes there were odd eyes staring at them out of the dark, glinting green in the night vision.

Tony focused on the familiar threat of bad people with guns, and tried not to think too much about whatever natural dangers surrounded them. They were moving even faster than they had earlier, entering rougher terrain and ever more remote stretches of land.

It had been dark for several hours when Gray paused at a level stretch on a hillside. He signaled for Ziva and Tony to stay where they were and walked into the trees surrounding them, looking around in a way he hadn't before.

When he came back he had a bundle of sticks under one arm. The agents watched as he drove four of them into the soft ground, knelt in the middle, and removed his pack. He unclipped a thin gray roll from the bottom and shook it out – mosquito netting. The gauzy net was draped simply over the stakes in the ground, then weighed on three sides by the extra sticks.

Gray sat to remove his socks and boots. He wrung out the socks, draped them over two extra stakes, and crawled under the net in his bare feet. The stubby rifle never left his shoulders.

He glanced over at the agents watching him, dragging his pack into position under his head.

"You're gonna wanna sleep under the net," he said. He slung his rifle forward and lay down next to it. "Two hour watch." His voice was hoarse, the words slurring together. He tucked his arms and legs into his body, out of the night chill, and closed his eyes.

Tony glanced at Ziva, but she beat him to it. "I will take the first watch," she said. "I prefer it. Just give me a moment in the brushes . . ."

When Ziva returned, Tony took off his boots, grimacing as he peeled the socks from his feet and draped them over sticks like Gray had. Then he crawled into the tent with his pack and settled down, watching Ziva sit just up the hill from the net and begin scanning the area through her night vision scope. He removed the pistol from the harness under his shirt and laid it by his head.

A little over two hours later Ziva's hand on his shoulder woke him. He crawled out of the net, groaning faintly. She handed him her rifle, waiting until he slung it over his shoulder to press two tablets into his free hand. Tony peered at the pills in the moonlight and slumped with relief.

He pressed a kiss to her cheek."I love you," he whispered sincerely. She'd brought grunt candy, and he swallowed it gratefully.

Tony pulled on dry socks and his boots and checked his watch. It was just after two in the morning. He stood for the first half hour, turning in slow circles before he could trust himself to sit down. He switched off sitting and standing every fifteen minutes for two and a half long hours, until movement beneath him caught his eye. Gray was sitting up.

Tony glanced at his watch - it was 0430. The kid picked up the stick holding down the netting next to him and rolled out of the thin shelter, dragging his gun out after him. He stepped into the trees and reappeared a minute later, moving to sit a few yards from Tony.

"Get some sleep," he said.

"You sure?" Tony looked him over carefully. He hadn't had any intention of waking Gray to take a shift. But the kid nodded, already scanning the trees.

He looked alert. More alert than Tony felt, if he was honest with himself.

Tony wanted to say something then. A lot of things. He wanted to point out the obvious - that it was Tony's family they were going after, not the kid's. That Gray should sleep.

He wanted to protest that the kid shouldn't be here at all, and to ask why he was in the same breath. He wanted to insist that Gray wake him and Ziva if anything went wrong. Not to use that ugly short rifle, not for them. 

If anything happened, he wanted Gray to run.

But he was tired, his mind cloudy. And every last molecule of energy in him was geared toward Gibbs. Finding Gibbs and getting them out of here safe. There wasn't an atom left over for anything else.

Anyway, there was no sense in both of them being up. Tony dragged himself to his feet and crawled back under the net. He remembered thinking that the bare ground shouldn't feel so soft, so comfortable. And then he was gone.


	12. Cruelty, Or . . .

Tony and Ziva jerked up, blinking, hands on their guns. The netting over their heads was whisked away. Gray laid the net out on the dewy ground to roll it up.

The world was gray instead of dark now, a hint of red touching the sky to the east.

They staggered to their feet, took turns in the bushes, ate more power bars, drained the last of their gatorade water. They smeared themselves with bug repellant, applied moleskin to raw heels and sore spots on the soles of their feet.

Finally they were ready, and turned to Gray. He took a little bottle of Scope and a collapsable toothbrush from the top of his bag.

He noticed them staring and looked at his toothbrush, confused, before his eyes turned back to them. He waggled the little red brush. "Think Pete put them in with your First Aid."

They dug through their packs and found them there, along with tiny tubes of toothpaste. Gray held out what was clearly his personal mini-bottle of mouthwash and they took it gratefully, using paltry sips to rinse the taste of gatorade and paste from their mouths.

At last the kid pulled up the stakes he'd used to hang the net and scattered them into the trees, and they were moving again.

The second day was slow going compared to the first, the terrain rougher, the trees closer together and harder to get through, the hills constant and steep. They had to retreat and hide from four motorized patrols, one of them with a cadre of soldiers following that passed within feet of them.

A twin-engine plane flew over at midday, circling so close and low the canopy above them was torn apart. They pressed themselves into the trunks of a thick stand of trees and were still, vulnerable, helpless as rabbits hiding from wolves. Ziva closed her eyes and hid her face in her arm on the plane's lowest passes. Sharp bits of debris hit her, leaves and twigs and clumps of dirt. She fingered her gun and wondered if whoever was up there had seen them, if the cartel had been informed of their whereabouts, if they had an intelligence leak - maybe from Kort's ghost base, or from Kort himself. She wondered if this mission was over before it even began.

She found herself praying. Half-formed thoughts sent to the vague god that appears in crisis, when all that can be done is to hang on, to wait for fate to find its way. Hope and fear hurling themselves at the primal altar in her mind, begging of their own accord. Please not Tony. Not Gibbs too. Please not a child.

The plane passed over them once more, banked south, and faded away.

Gray moved swiftly.

And more quietly than the agents following him. Tony figured that was how he knew the patrols were coming - Gray heard them first because his own movements were so silent. He had them retreating into hiding crucial seconds before Tony or Ziva could hear the motors or the men approaching.

Sometimes over the course of the day Gray would slow his pace for no reason that the agents could discern. Then the boy would begin signaling for them to move quietly, to be even quieter, to stop. Several times he left them in a sheltered spot, gesturing to wait before melting away into the trees. Half an hour, forty-five minutes, once an hour passed before he returned, appearing from another direction, beckoning them to creep after him again. They would move slowly, Ziva and Tony doing their best to be quiet, until the unknown danger faded and Gray's speed picked up again.

In those dangerous stretches, Ziva slung her rifle forward and gripped it firmly. Tony took his pistol out of the holster at his back, heart beating louder in his ears than the rasp of the dead plant matter under his feet. They were used to danger on the job, but this was beyond that. The threats they faced as agents were rarely so constant, never so unknown. Now they were forced to weave along ignorantly in a strange world, following the lead of someone they'd just met and could hardly trust. After two days, Tony had developed a new motto for life: the unknown threat lurking in the shadows was more terrible than any solid enemy he had ever faced.

Doubt was useless here though, just like hesitation. He forced himself to follow their guide, even if he couldn't exactly trust him, and shoved away the uncertainties that kept running through his mind.

**x**

As they climbed to higher land they left behind the muddy rivers, filling their canteens in clearer, smaller streams. They stopped near one and rested for a few minutes in the early afternoon. Gray looked relaxed, unconcerned. He leaned back against a tree and shut his eyes, so the agents relaxed too, keeping only a cursory lookout.

Ziva sat beside Tony and gently stretched her hamstrings, checking her weapon and chewing yet another meal bar. Tony, limp with exhaustion, leaned against a tree that he had carefully checked for snakes. Something fluttered past his head and he frowned, thinking the bird or insect or whatever it was had gotten awfully close. He looked down lazily and stilled.

An enormous butterfly covered his knee. The wings were a brilliant, iridescent orange, like a beacon on his muddy gray camouflage. The wings moved gently up and down, pushed by an infinitesimal breeze too soft for Tony to feel. The movement made the orange coloring of the wings flash into pale purple and back again.

The fuzzy little body, black with neat white rings, marched slowly down his leg.

"Um," Tony cleared his throat. "Is there such a thing as a poisonous butterfly?" He was joking, sort of. Half-joking. Colorful things were more likely to be deadly things, right? He was pretty sure he'd seen that on NOVA.

Gray cracked an eye open and rolled his head to look at Tony. The agent was absorbed by the huge insect on his leg, but glanced up in time to see Gray sit forward, a little smile on his face. His eyes were light and curious, and warm. Tony stared, butterfly forgotten.

It really hit him then. Under the tough exterior the kid was . . . well, a kid. Not a mini-Kort. Not a means to Gibbs, or some agency asset. A kid. The pressure of the last two weeks retreated and allowed for a moment of clarity.

Gibbs really would kill them for dragging someone they should be protecting into a mess like this.

But that was alright, assuming they survived that long. They would deserve it.

Tony resolved then, no matter what, that Gray would get out of here. He'd made that promise already to Pete. Now he made it to himself.

The smile was gone by the time Gray rolled to his feet and approached. He crouched down, slow, and laid a finger very softly on Tony's leg.

The butterfly encountered the obstacle, evaluated the situation and, undaunted, began to crawl up this new hurdle, tiny feet gripping the whorls of a fingerprint. Gray gently lifted his finger away, carrying it up into the air like a bird on a perch.

The dangerous world around them faded, for a few seconds anyway, as the three of them focused on the delicate insect. It was such a strange, pristine moment. Tony held his breath.

"No," Gray said finally, still crouched by Tony's knee. "No poisonous butterflies. Less you eat them."

The butterfly glowed in the pale green light filtering through the trees. The shimmering fabric of its wings was the most beautiful color Tony had ever seen.

"Yafefe," Ziva said quietly.

Gray turned to her. "What's that mean?"

"It is the Hebrew word for beautiful."

The kid looked right at her for a long moment. It was the first time they'd really acknowledged each other's presence since the park in DC. Ziva had studied Gray, but hadn't spoken to him. Tony sort of understood that - she was wary of anyone she saw as a killer. And on top of that she felt guilty as hell.

Gray was more puzzling. He ignored her completely, hadn't so much as looked at her since that first meeting, when he'd stared.

Tony suddenly wondered if the kid was just . . . unsure around women. It seemed incredible, given how unfazed he was by everything else. But he probably hadn't come across many girls when he was crawling around in this jungle, which he'd clearly spent a lot of time doing. Or even hanging with the ex-Rangers of Ghost Base. It was an all-male facility as far as Tony could tell. Who knew how much of his life had passed in places like that?

Gray turned back to the butterfly. "Yafefe," he said.

He hadn't ever approached Tony before, much less stayed this close. Gray's face was streaked with dirt, and his equally dirty hair stuck to his skull. His dark clothes were covered in mud and he stank, just like Tony did, of moldy river water and sweat. The black strap of the compact rifle across his back pressed into his shoulder, pulling at the neck of his t-shirt. Something odd there drew the agent's eyes.

A series of straight, faint lines had been carved into Gray's skin. Tony stared at the scars, trying to figure out what could have made them. They were thin and white and close together, oddly regular, running down his neck and shoulder, disappearing under the fabric of his shirt.

When Tony dragged his gaze back up to Gray's face the boy was looking right at him. 

Gray stood then, turning his palm into the air, lifting the butterfly into flight in one smooth motion. 

They watched it disappear, and the moment was gone. Gray shouldered his pack and moved into the trees and Tony rolled to his feet, following automatically. He only paused when he realized - Ziva wasn't moving with them.

"Hey," Tony said. She didn't seem to hear him. "Hey, Zee. Time to go." He walked over and put a hand out to haul her up.

It wasn't until he was really close that he saw she was shaking, fine tremors running through her shoulders, into the hands wrapped around her legs.

"Ziva? You hurt?" He didn't think she was, not physically. Tony glanced in the direction the kid went. It was empty except for trees. Whatever she was dealing with, they didn't have time for it.

"Ziva . . . hey, we're gonna get Gibbs out of here, okay? And the kid. We'll get them out."

Her hand came out to him then and he grabbed it, pulled, swinging her up to her feet. He tried to duck down to see her face, catch her eye. But she kept her head down, adjustinf her rifle and the pack on her shoulders, moving rapidly into the jungle, following Gray's path easily.

Solid again, or close enough.

They slept under the net that night, taking turns with the watch.

The third day was the same as the second, sweaty and hard and mostly silent, blurring by in endless green and shadow and tense pauses.

As the afternoon waned things changed. Gray moved more slowly, stopping frequently to crouch and simply listen, or leaving them behind to scout ahead, then circling back to pick them up again.

Tony took the compact assault rifle out of his pack and carried it at his side, slung forward so that he could bring it into his hands easily. Ziva kept her rifle at the ready as well. It slowed them down on anything steep, since they no longer had both hands free. But that didn't matter as much now that Gray was moving so cautiously.

Finally he led them into a nook in a hill that concealed them from all but a head-on view. He held up a hand, signaling for them to wait a minute, and turned his head slowly. Listening. Then he crouched down and motioned them closer.

"We're a few hours out from the camp," he said, "The outer ring of fields is up ahead."

He reminded them of the outlines of the plan, the one Kort reviewed with Tony and Ziva before they left DC. "I'll go in at dusk with the field workers and retrieve your man. We'll meet up with you outside the camp at a location I'll point out up ahead. If I'm not out by 0100 you come forward and blow one of the towers." He tilted his head toward Ziva, who nodded.

She carried six damn heavy grenades in her pack, as well as the attachment to Tony's rifle that would launch the explosives. She would be happy enough to use the grenades rather than haul them back out.

Gray eyed her suspiciously. "That's a distraction to use in a worst case scenario," he reminded them, about as firm as it was possible to get in a near-whisper. "If you do blow a tower we still meet back at the rendezvous. Anyone who isn't there by the time I reach it will have to find their own way out of here. I won't stop," he said casually. "So, all good?"

Tony and Ziva glanced at each other.

How could this plan be good? It didn't seem worthy of the word _plan_. Of course they really only knew a small fraction of it. How exactly was the kid going to get out of the camp with Gibbs? How was he going to get _in_? The idea that he would be able to waltz through the gates without detection seemed ludicrous.

But no one was volunteering that information to the NCIS agents.

Assuming the in-and-out-of-the-camp part worked, how were they going to avoid patrols on the hike out to the border? As soon as Gibbs' disappearance was noticed at least three hundred fighters would begin searching for him. Kort had said that evading followers once they were into the wilderness wouldn't be much of a problem. But just today they barely avoided several patrols, and that was when the Caleras didn't even know there were Feds creeping around in their jungle. Surely it would be a hundred times worse when the cartel began hunting them? And finally, if they missed Gray's one pass through the rendezvous, whenever it came, they would be _left behind_.

They worked for Gibbs. "Left Behind" was not an ethos with which they were familiar. But the kid had proven that he knew what he was doing so far, and Kort was behind the plan. He might be slimy and amoral, but Kort never struck anyone on Gibbs' team as incompetent.

Tony looked at Gray. They hadn't gone over the plan since DC, when Kort presented it to them in a take-it-or-leave-it way. The team had decided to take it  – what other choice did they have? But now they were actually about to do it. To commit their lives, and Gibbs' life.

Tony decided it was a good time to be blunt. "Do you think this has a shot in hell of working?"

Gray raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't be here if I didn't."

"Will you be alright in there?" Ziva asked. "I could probably pass for one of the workers and accompany you. Would that be safer?"

Tony and Ziva looked at Gray expectantly.

The kid pulled back with a weird  grimace, halfway to a surprised laugh and halfway to horror. "No."

Tony couldn't help grinning. It was a funny look, and a real one too.

Still the agents were quiet. Uncertain.

"This is the best we got." Gray said. "If you're not good with it we turn around and go back, or you can try going in there on your own. You'd be killed," he said evenly. "But it's your choice."

Tony and Ziva looked at each other.

The best we've got, he'd said. _We_. The three of them were a team now, sort of. The best we've got . . . And it was true. This was their one chance to snatch Gibbs back from a fate that would truly be worse than death. Hesitate and it would be gone forever. Tony looked into Ziva's eyes and reminded himself of what hesitating had got him before.

This time the agents nodded.

Gray stood up and announced that he was going to pee.

When he returned Ziva took a turn in the bushes. Tony and Gray crouched in the shelter of the hill, sipping their gatorade, Tony washing down more of Ziva's blessed drugs.

He was bringing his canteen up to take another sip when a fuzzy black shape darted out from a crevice in the hill and practically ran over his foot. It was big - the size of Tony's hand, which was half a basketball. And he could tell, even though it was moving really fast, that it had a lot of legs.

Too many legs.

Tony hissed and jumped back, best as he could in a crouch.

The thing stopped a few feet away.

It was a spider. A damn enormous furry spider, right out of a horror movie. It had blood red fangs and a whole load of beady black eyes, all of them fixed on Tony.

He had a sudden, somewhat hysterical thought that Abby would really like this critter. It had her fashion sense.

"Um," Tony huffed a strained laugh. The jungle was not boring, he would give it that. "Let me guess. Harmless?"

Gray didn't say anything, just reached a hand back toward the blade in the long side pocket of his pack. His other hand crept toward Tony, pushing the agent back gently, slowly. Then he leaned forward a bit.

Tony stiffened instinctively as the kid's arm flashed up from behind them and swung forward with huge force, slamming the flat of his machete onto the ground.

He hit the spider dead center. Its body was smashed completely flat, blue-green goo flying in every direction. The long black legs waved frantically on either side of the blade, jerking with movement long past death.

"Want to avoid those," Gray said. Mild voice totally at odds with the sudden violence. He lifted the machete and scraped it against the side of a tree, removing the worst of the fuzzy hairs and sticky blue fluid.

Tony swallowed and looked away from the disgusting remains. "Poisonous?" he whispered. "Was that thing poisonous?"

"Yeah."

Tony stared at a streak of blue that had landed close to his foot.

Gray looked at him. "Thought you had some kind of study sheet."

Tony lurched to his feet. Sure, he'd looked at McGee's study sheet. For a minute. And then he had decided he could cover all his bases by simply avoiding anything out here that wasn't on his team. That fit perfectly with the human part of his strategy, because it was the same.

Colombia Rule #2, they'd call it. In the jungle avoid all life forms, human or otherwise, that are not readily identifiable as your partner or your guide. And even the guide . . . Tony glanced at the kid. The odd calm there struck him, for the first time really, as something deadly.

He thought back to Ziva's words on the plane.

So, okay. Probably best to keep something of a safety perimeter around the guide, too.

Ziva walked back into the nook just as Gray slid the machete back into his pack.

"All right," Tony whispered, eyeing the ground. And the kid. "C'mon. Let's find the boss and get the hell out of here."

**x**

They began to see fields and people far below them, through the trees. Tiny figures moving between green rows of plants, tractors driving down narrow dirt lanes. Ziva thought back to the satellite photo of the camp. There were jungle covered hills to the west and a valley of flat plantations to the east. The boy was leading them around the valley, skirting high above it.

Finally the camp appeared, and Ziva and Tony paused for a moment to stare down at it.

They could see the airstrip and the long buildings that Kort said housed the drug labs. Beyond that were the rows of barracks, framed by the fence. The figures in the towers got clearer as the agents crept downward, closer. There looked to be three men and two mounted guns in each.

The sun was setting now, the light fading rapidly. Gray had timed it well. The jungle became shadowy, providing good cover, while the camp was exposed.

Ziva's heart began to pound. Noises from the sprawling village reached them now, and they could see smoke rising from hundreds of cooking fires. Much closer were the shouts of men working around the barracks, and of patrols walking the wire. The gate on the far side of the camp looked busy, men dressed in fatigues – Ziva wouldn't call them soldiers – searching the steady stream of trucks and people going in and out.

Abruptly Gray stopped and turned to them. He pointed a finger at the ground and made a circling motion. Tony and Ziva looked around. The trees were thick here, and it took them a moment to realize they were on a wide ledge. In front of them, toward the camp, there was a steep drop - almost a cliff. Behind them the hill rose steeply into the wilderness. A little stream pooled on the ledge and bubbled down toward the camp.

Ziva nodded. The area was protected by the steep terrain leading up to it, and they would only need to follow the stream to find this place again. It was a good point to rendezvous.

Gray dropped his pack on the ground and dug out a dark, battered canvas hat. He slung the machine gun off his shoulder, propping it against the pack, and pulled the hat down over his head. Its wide brim flopped down, covering his eyes.

He looked, suddenly, just like the field workers that passed below them.

"One," he mouthed, tapping his watch. And he was gone.

 

* * *

 

The title of this chapter from Lucille Clifton's poem "Cruelty, Or What I Am Capable Of" _:_

_Cruelty, Or What I Am Capable Of_

_cruelty. don't talk to me about cruelty_

_or what i am capable of._

_when i wanted the roaches dead i wanted them dead_

_and i killed them. i took a broom to their country_

_and smashed and sliced without warning_

_without stopping and i smiled all the time i was doing it._

_it was a holocaust of roaches, bodies,_

_parts of bodies, red all over the ground._

_i didn't ask their names._

_they had no names worth knowing._

_now i watch myself whenever i enter a room._

_i never know what i might do._


	13. MTAC

Leon Vance stooped for the retinal scanner and strode into MTAC. The room was empty, except for two figures sitting motionless in the first row of seats. Vance relaxed into a chair across the aisle from them.

"How's our team?"

Abby smiled distractedly and went back to the screen in front of her without paying him any mind. She had a laptop balanced across her legs and an enormous Caf-Pow wedged into the cup holder next to her. McGee was more informative. "Less than five miles out from the camp, sir."

Vance nodded and turned to the screen, watching two blinking red dots make their way across a field of black. He'd been watching the same thing for most of his free hours since his agents' insertion into the Colombian jungle. The black background was periodically intersected by some vague landmark. Scuito and McGee had superimposed the GPS locators onto days-old satellite images pulled illegally from the CIA network.

Occasionally the director's eyes strayed to a faint blue dot moving in front of the red. And then more and more often.

Vance closed his eyes for a second and reached into his jacket pocket for a toothpick, chewing on the slender wood as he considered his options. That was the one thing toothpicks had over cigarettes – you could chew them. Not as satisfying as nicotine, but better than nothing. Finally he stood.

"Patch the feed up to my office, McGee. I need to make a call."

McGee jerked up. He'd been murmuring to Abby, their heads bent close over the laptop. "Yes sir."

Vance made his way up to his office, checked his watch as the phone rang. It was just after 1800.

The greeting was terse, of course. "Kort."

"Agent Kort, this is Leon Vance."

A pause. A long pause.

"Just a moment, Director."

Shuffling noises and a high-pitched voice filtered up though the background. Two voices? Vance raised his eyebrows. He listened to the sound of a door closing, and then silence.

"Something wrong?" Kort's voice was perfectly neutral.

"No, everything's fine. I just thought you might like to come into NCIS. We're watching a show."

Kort didn't miss a beat. "None of my favorite celebrities are in shows at the moment, Director Vance."

Vance watched the red blinking dots, stationary now in a moat of black. It looked like they'd stopped for a break while the pale blue blob moved rapidly away.

Vance ground down on his toothpick. Well, he'd already gone this far. "You sure about that, Kort? All sorts of people are on television these days. You might be on and never even know."

Silence.

"Half an hour," the other man growled, and the line cut off.

Vance sighed. That growl was not neutral.

A security guard escorted Kort up to MTAC. The CIA agent stopped in front of the huge screen and stared at the three dots moving across it. The pale blue one had looped around, as it usually did, and picked the red dots back up again, McGee and Abby following closely through it all. The maneuver no longer caused quite the panic it had the first time they split up.

Vance watched Kort take it in.

The man was clearly furious.

"What have you done?" Kort snarled.

Vance nodded toward the screen. "Dinozzo and David are in red. Subcutaneous GPS locators. We found a less conspicuous way of tracking your . . . man."

McGee and Abby sat frozen, for once their attention diverted from Tony and Ziva's progress. Kort looked dangerous.

He turned hard eyes to Vance. "He needs to be able to blend. If they're discovered the cartel will find a tracking device, no matter how cleverly it's hidden. He'll be marked as a traitor and killed."

McGee blinked. A traitor?

Vance gestured toward the screen again, keeping his tone matter-of-fact. "There's no device to be found. Gray isn't carrying a locator. The blue color is an isotope diffused in his bloodstream. His signal is picked up by the same satellite receiving the GPS signals. It isn't as strong as a regular locator and will fade completely in about a week. But it won't be detected in a normal bug sweep."

Kort was motionless, just looking at Vance for a long moment. "An isotope? Are you saying you _irradiated_ him?"

Vance smiled faintly. "Yes."

McGee stood up, glancing quickly at the director. They needed Kort's cooperation for the rest of the mission to work. For Gibbs.

"The isotope is harmless," he offered. "Gray won't know it's there and neither will anyone who finds him. If they find him. It's safe."

Kort turned to McGee, who promptly blanched. Tim was a capable agent these days, but that didn't mean he was immune to fear.

"Gray didn't agree to this," Kort said flatly.

McGee and Abby glanced at Vance, but the director didn't seem inclined to say anything.

"How did you introduce it?"

McGee looked to Vance again, who finally nodded. Not that this was likely to calm Kort down.

"Water," McGee said.

Kort stared until he continued. "Tony," McGee hesitated. "Uh - Tony injected a water bottle with the isotope after they left DC. It would have been undetectable to anyone drinking it."

Kort actually looked shocked. "Gray is careful about what he eats and drinks," he said slowly. "But I told him he could trust Gibbs' team."

There was silence. _Trust?_ McGee thought. _Kort?_

Abby stood up. "He can! This way we can find him. He's safer."

Kort glanced over all of them and then looked back up at the screen. "You don't know that."

After a moment Vance gestured toward a chair. "They're not far out from the camp now. You're welcome to stay and watch."

Kort didn't respond, but he did sink into a chair. Vance sat a few seats away and McGee and Abby went back to their murmuring.

An hour later the pale blue dot peeled off from the others once again. Vance glanced at Kort. "He's been doing that periodically since they were first dropped."

Kort was silent.

"Looks like some kind of reconnaissance," Vance prompted.

Kort glanced his way. "Not this time. They're too close to the camp." He turned back to look at the screen. "He's going in."

A second later the phone rang and McGee went to the desk to answer it, Vance's eyes on him. Very few people in the world would know there was anyone present to answer the phones in this room.

"Agent McGee . . ." McGee glanced toward Vance. "Yes . . . one moment." McGee held up the receiver. "Um, call for you? Kort?"

Kort didn't seem surprised. He crossed the room to take the receiver. "Yeah . . . How long? . . . Hold on. I'm giving you back to McGee." Kort held out the phone and McGee took it back again.

"Agent McGee," the voice on the other end was scratchy. "Agent Kort has asked me to patch a satellite feed into the NCIS communications center. I'll need authorization and the link from your end."

McGee frowned and glanced at Vance, who had a more than demanding look on his face. "Satellite?"

"I have a picture coming through now, coordinates 4.84279 by 73.67883. Will you accept the feed?"

McGee stiffened. Those coordinates were familiar. They were Colombia. "Yes!"

In minutes the static background behind the colored dots on the main screen was wiped away, and a gray-toned, live image materialized in its place. The camp dominated the picture, the jungle a black border on the screen's upper edge, fields just beginning to appear at the lower border.

Vance studied the image closely. Bright white dots crawled everywhere. Thermal people. It was remarkably sharp for an evening shot – this had to be an NSA satellite. Night vision would fade in as natural light faded out.

Abby and McGee pored over her laptop, typing rapidly, glancing up at the big screen periodically. A minute later one of the white blobs turned blue.

Kort glanced over at the young NCIS agent and his forensic specialist. That was actually . . . impressive.

The cyberduo grinned at each other like fools and Kort turned back to the screen, eyes locked on the blue dot. Beside him Vance was silent and still, but Kort could feel the man's agitation build as Gray wove through the camp. Kort's lips turned up in a little grin. He'd suffered more than enough aggravation from NCIS over the years. Any chance to give a little back was entirely satisfying.

Finally the director spoke. "What the hell is he doing?"


	14. Gibbs

There was a hum in the little shack where they kept Gibbs. An electric buzz. His room didn't have electricity – none of the tiny second floor was wired, as far as he could tell – but light from an electric bulb seeped up through the floorboards late into the night, and sometimes he could hear a radio downstairs.

There was a soccer game on that night, murmuring in the background while he worked through a series of sit-ups, squats, and push-ups. It continued to play as he lay on the floor recovering, stretched out stiffly on his side.

He dropped off to sleep to a cool breeze and the voices of men drifting in through the rough window cut into the wall. It was always noisy here, always active. The goods a factory like this produced were lucrative, and it ran twenty-four hours a day.

He woke up a few hours after dark.

Something was different.

It took him a second to place it - the electricity had cut out. The floor below him was dark. He lay listening to shuffling sounds, to the rise of the guards' annoyed voices. Footsteps. A door creaking open and closed.

And then, something different. A low, slow scrape at the window.

Gibbs cracked an eye, feigning sleep. A shadowy head appeared in the window, backlit by the crescent moon. The head was followed rapidly by a body. A boy, swinging fast and whisper silent into the room.

The figure looked at Gibbs and held his finger to his lips.

Gibbs gave up the pretense of sleep, tilted his head to follow the boy's progress across the room, toward the door.

He moved carefully, shifting his weight evenly, and managed not to make any noise on the soft old wood under his feet.

When he got to the door the boy examined it closely, but there was nothing to see, really. The guards padlocked it from the outside. There was nothing to be done about it from the inside, though the frame of the door itself looked like flimsy construction. How sturdy the lock or the door really were Gibbs didn't know, he'd never been able to get close to them. His right hand was cuffed to a pipe that ran from the ground floor up through the roof.

The pipe, he knew for sure, was damn sturdy.

The kid drew back his hand and Gibbs eyes widened. Before Gibbs could react, the boy knocked lightly on the wood and stepped back quickly, _noisily_ , to stand by the wall next to the door.

Gibbs held his breath. A chair scraped against the floor below him. Footsteps moved toward the stairs.

The boy was watching Gibbs, eyes calm. But he was moving too, reaching into one of the pockets of his pants, pulling something out.

The guard stopped on the landing outside the padlocked door. A clink of metal against metal – the key hitting the lock, turning the mechanism – and the clunk of the lock against the hinge as it was pulled open.

The door swung in and the guard stepped through, rifle at his side, eyes running over Gibbs.

The guard never saw the boy. In the dark room, well back from the window, Gibbs couldn't really see him either. But a moment later the guard began to fall. The kid caught him under the arms, staggering with the weight as he lowered the body gently, quietly to the floor.

Gibbs sat up. The kid ignored him, busy with his prize. Gibbs wondered for a moment if the boy was a thief, watching as he took the AK-47 off the guard's shoulder, placed it against the wall, and rifled the pockets of the uniform, pulling out a ring of keys. He stepping lightly, quickly toward the door and disappeared through it.

Gibbs couldn't hear him on the stairs.

Not thirty seconds later the downstairs door opened and closed again. Gibbs heard the boots of the other guard step into the shack.

A thump, and the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor.

A minute later the boy appeared in the doorway again, another AK slung over his shoulder. He crossed the room and crouched beside Gibbs, shuffling through the keys from the guard's ring, finally lifting one to the cuffs. A moment later, Gibbs' hand was released.

"¿Esta herido, Gibbs?"

A shiver crawled through Gibbs' gut. This kid knew his name? The _guards_ hadn't known his name.

His Spanish was rusty but he'd learned enough to get by, sort of. It had come back a bit over the last few weeks. He shook his head. He wasn't hurt. "¿Quién eres tu?" he tried.

The boy ignored him except to run his eyes in a doubtful sweep over Gibbs' body - searching for injuries, apparently. Then the boy reached into one of the side pockets of his pants and pulled something out, holding it toward Gibbs.

It was a package, wrapped carefully in brown paper and sheer plastic. There was writing on the paper. He took it and tilted it toward the moonlight. Gibbs didn't have to hold it at arms length to read the message - the writing was big and bold, Dinozzo's unmistakable block lettering.

RULE 9.

He tore the plastic and then the paper away to reveal his spare knife, the one hidden in his desk at work. No one but his team knew about that knife.

Gibbs looked up as the kid moved toward the guard laying on the floor.

"Sus amigos están afuera," the boy said, the words slow and clear. "Entiende? Es hora de irnos. Ahora."

His friends. Outside.

The kid opened the buttons on the guard's shirt, hauling the torso up to drag the jacket down his arms. He glanced back at Gibbs and jerked his head toward the man's boots.

Gibbs hadn't been farther from the pipe than the length of his arm in almost a week. He surged forward, unlacing the first boot he reached. When he tugged it off the foot flopped out lifelessly, struck the floor with a thud. Gibbs looked up at the boy.

"¿Está muerto?"

The kid shook his head. "Dormido."

Gibbs frowned. Sleeping? Tranquilized, maybe.

A minute later the man had been stripped. Gibbs ignored the boy's scrutiny as he took off his own clothes, long since stiff with old blood and sweat, and dressed in the guard's relatively clean undershirt, camo jacket and pants, finally pulling his own boots back on.

When he rose to his feet the kid was holding out the second rifle. Gibbs grasped the barrel, but the boy didn't let go.

"Sígame si quiere vivir, Gibbs. ¿Comprende?"

Right.

"¿Quién eres tu?"

The boy's face was neutral as he answered. "Soy su salida."

I am . . . the way out.

Gibbs nodded and the weapon was released into his hands. The kid turned, heading down the stairs, and Gibbs followed.

The other guard was nowhere to be seen, but the boy walked into the shadows in the back of the shack and returned a second later with a floppy, sweaty canvas hat. When Gibbs pulled it on it was still warm. The kid moved to crouch by one of the open windows and peered out.

It was then that they heard the helicopter. It swept in fast and low, a roar over their heads.

Gibbs stiffened. That wasn't one of the ordinary transports into and out of the camp. Within that roar was the low, distinct beat of an assault helo.

Surely, whoever the "friends" outside were, they weren't stupid enough to assault this place. For one thing, he didn't have that many friends. Gibbs had estimated the numbers in the camp. One helicopter definitely wouldn't cut it -

" _Hijo de puta._ "

Gibbs glanced at the swearing boy crouched next to him. 

Okay. So apparently the helicopter wasn't friendly. Going by the look on the kid's face, it wasn't good for the plan either.

There was increased activity outside the window, more men moving, voices calling to each other. Whatever the arrival meant, it had stirred things up. The kid stared at the floor for almost a minute and then turned to look at Gibbs.

"Espere aquí," he whispered. "Silencio."

Sit tight. Gibbs nodded.

The kid slipped out the door and was gone.

* * *

  _Spanish phrases in this chapter:_

_¿Esta herido?: Are you injured?_

_¿Quién eres tu?: Who are you?_

_Sus amigos están afuera. Entiende? Es hora de irnos. Ahora: Your friends are outside. Understand? It's time to go. Now._

_¿Está muerto?: Is he dead?_

_dormido: sleeping_

_Sígame si quiere vivir: Follow me if you want to live._

_Soy su salida: I am the way out_

_hijo de puta: son of a bitch_

_Espere aquí: Wait here_

_silencio: be quiet_


	15. MTAC: Arrivals

Vance wasn't sure how the guide got into the camp. They hadn't pinpointed his location in time to see that.

He was merely confused when the blue dot moved into what looked like a large, lonely hangar sometime after nightfall. Vance glanced over at Kort, but the CIA agent looked relaxed.

Confusion shifted to concern when the kid stayed in the hangar for thirty-five solid minutes, the blue dot tracking slowly, ceaselessly through the space.

There was no one else in that building, no bodies warm enough to register a thermal signature anyway.

Gibbs was alive, according to Kort's intelligence. A warm body. And time was of the essence on any rescue op. So why was the kid crawling around in an empty hangar?

Vance shifted, jerkily unbuttoning his suit coat. He rearranged himself in his chair, hands curling into fists automatically. His old response to stress - the one he'd drilled into himself when he was just an angy teen at a cheap boxing gym. It had never left him. His fists were forever hopeful that a punching bag would materialize in his most difficult moments.

But punching something wasn't going to help him here. Vance couldn't even shoot anything in the service of this cause. Ironic, but the higher up the ladder he climbed the less control he seemed to have in situations like this - the less he could actually _do_. As director he could only watch, and wait for the dust to settle on the chess board.

It's not like he was in any position to question what the kid was doing. Technically the director of NCIS wasn't even aware this operation was taking place. His agents certainly weren't crawling around a private compound in Colombia, armed to the teeth. And Leon Vance, head of a federal agency, definitely wasn't watching the entire nonexistent, highly-illegal operation unfold on some shanghai'd phantom satellite.

Vance took a breath and relaxed his fists long enough to smooth his reassuringly expensive silk tie. Then he took out another toothpick and began to chew. It was Kort's show. Leon would wait it out.

Finally the kid left the hangar.

And went right into the one next door.

Vance turned to the man sitting a few feet away and just . . . burst. "What the _hell_ is he doing?"

Kort didn't move. But he was smirking, the bastard. "Hmm?"

"What is he doing in . . . McGee, what the hell is that building?"

"Truck bay, Director," McGee answered promptly. He was dying to know what was going on too, but Vance would get further questioning Kort than a lowly field agent ever would.

Kort smiled for real. Well, really amused. "Your crack agents figured out where the cartel keeps its trucks, did they? Good job." He nodded to McGee and Abby and returned his attention to the screen.

"Gibbs isn't in a truck bay, Kort. You said he'd most likely be held in one of the guard huts. What's going on?"

Kort studied the screen closely. "Gray will rescue your precious agent, Director Vance. There is no need to fret."

Kort wasn't concerned. But the CIA agent didn't seem inclined to share any more details, so the four of them continued to sit there in silence. Abby hunched over her laptop, McGee's hand curled in hers, and watched that blue speck. Waiting for something that looked like a rescue.

It was hours before the kid made his way to the ring of small buildings sitting beyond the troop barracks. He skirted several of the huts before stopping at one that glowed brightly with three white dots.

Abby, McGee, and finally Vance all looked to Kort.

His gaze was intense, focus on the screen total. 

The structure was very small, the four dots practically on top of each other on the screen. There was no way to tell what was happening between those blurry, faraway people, but they all continued to stare regardless.

It was only a minute or two later that the secure MTAC phone rang again, loud in the tense atmosphere. McGee jumped to answer and once again held the receiver out to Kort, who walked to the desk and took the call without taking his eyes off the screen.

"Yes . . . " Kort stiffened, went from cool to explosive in the blink of an eye. "How far? . . . Get Rodge to track it, I want an update on movement in the entire sector. And pull back the image here, do it now."

Abby squeaked in dismay as the satellite pulled back drastically, reducing the camp to the size of a postage stamp.

That's when they saw it. A streak of light at the corner of the picture, heading straight for Camp Six.

Vance sat forward. "What is that?"


	16. ¿Qué pasa?

He kept his body quiet, let his senses reach out to hear what was happening outside the shack. He heard plenty. Just nothing that meant anything to him.

Gibbs checked the rifle in his hands and shifted behind the door so that he could get the drop on anyone who came through it. Men and trucks passed, but no one entered.

Ten minutes . . . fifteen . . . twenty . . . The kid was gone, but some kind of plan was in motion. A plan Gibbs didn't know, which was his least favorite kind. Time dragged on, so slow it seemed to stop.

Gibbs had no watch, they'd taken it from him back in Mexico.

He stopped tracking time after the estimated half-hour mark, began planning what he would do if no one came back for him. The guards usually changed in the morning, just after sunup. He would have to be gone from this shack before then.

Maybe forty-five minutes had passed before there was a lull in activity outside. Gibbs was just about to move to the window, risk looking out, when the kid flew in and slumped against the closest wall. He shut the door behind him gently and sank down to the filthy floor, breathing hard.

Gibbs kept a lookout, watched the kid regain his breath from the corner of his eye. And then a minute passed in silence, the boy just sitting there, ignoring the agent standing over him.

So Gibbs finally asked. "¿Qué pasa?"

"Espera."

Right. Gibbs licked his dry lips and dredged up the words, digging through memories of his last op in Colombia to find them. "¿Sabes quién es . . . en el helicóptero?"

The boy was silent for awhile, staring at the far wall of the shack as if it held the secrets of the universe. Finally he said, very low, "El diablo."

Which was great, really. So helpful. Gibbs frowned at the boy's sweaty, indifferent face and shook his head a little, hoping for more. He got nothing.

Gibbs didn't ask more questions. He stood patiently by the door, like a sentry, ready for any threat that might come through. Waiting for whatever came next.

When he sensed eyes on him he looked back down at the kid. It wasn't too unusual for people to stare at Gibbs. He was a cop - desperate people stared at him in hairy situations, angry people stared at him across the interrogation table, grieving people stared at him in interview rooms. But in a situation as tense as this one, it was strange for a kid to sit so quietly, to look so long.

Finally the boy rolled to his feet and crossed the room. He stayed well away from the windows, disappearing into the shadows in the back of the shack.

Gibbs focused all of his attention on what his ears were telling him about the outside world. He absently registered the boy coming back a moment later, carrying something in his hand - a canteen. Boy slid noiselessly back down the wall, sitting on the floor a few feet from Gibbs, well hidden from anyone passing by. He unscrewed the metal cap to take a sip.

"Hey."

Gibbs looked down. The boy held out a hand, two white tablets in his outstretched palm.

"Le duele," the boy said tersely. "Yo sé."

Gibbs peered at the pills again and recognized the stamp on them. His old friend, prescription Motrin. Grunt candy.

Ducky once told Gibbs you might as well drink battery acid - the long term damage to your stomach and liver would be about the same. But the kid was right. Every breath hurt, and if he actually had to move . . . Gibbs picked up the tablets, was about to crunch them down dry when the canteen was held out.

He swallowed down the pills and whispered his thanks. The kid tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Like this was a prime time to take a nap.

Gibbs bit back an urge to run for it. To just slip out the door, into the dark, and head for the hills. But with the knife and the message, Dinozzo had told him to trust the kid. And Gibbs would, because he trusted Dinozzo.

He just didn't like not knowing the plan.

Gibbs fingered the familiar knife in his pocket and reminded himself that the current situation, however frustrating, was a huge improvement over being handcuffed to a pipe.

Another twenty minutes passed before the boy got up and peered out the window again. Finally he rose to his feet and turned to Gibbs, looking him over. He reached up and tugged down firmly on Gibbs' hat, hiding his hair and eyes. He did the same to his own hat. Then he turned toward the door and crooked a finger at the agent behind him.

"Sígame. Lentamente," he whispered. And he was out the door.

Gibbs took a breath and followed, stepping nonchalantly out into the night. The moon was gone now, hiding behind stray clouds, and the way was very dark.

They strolled toward a big truck parked a few buildings away. There didn't seem to be anyone around, at least not close by, and Gibbs didn't risk turning his head to scan the area. They were exposed, but they must have looked like any other pair of guards patrolling the camp.

It seemed like the kid was going to walk past the truck as they approached it, but at the last second he unhooked the back door and jumped smoothly in, disappearing under the high awning. Gibbs followed, launching himself into the impenetrable black pit.

For a moment he was thankful that he'd stretched and exercised his legs while chained to that damn pipe, even if it was agony at the time. Then every thought was overwhelmed by the stench. The kid, invisible next to him in the black, reached out and latched the door shut behind them. A second later a tiny flashlight switched on, but Gibbs didn't need it to know what he'd just jumped into.

They were crouched in manure.

He'd used a bucket in the shack, one the guards emptied when they felt like it. It was pretty smelly, given the laziness of the men watching him and his own body's reaction to what they fed him. But he hadn't actually been sitting in it.

It was piled highest in the middle. The kid made his way to the edge of the bed, where there was some room to move, and began to crawl forward, totally ignoring the shit. Gibbs followed, breathing as lightly as possible to keep from passing out.

When they reached the front of the hold the boy knocked twice on the metal wall separating the bed from the cab. An instant later the engine started and they were moving. The boy moved around Gibbs and pushed the agent's body firmly back and down, finally pressing in after him until they were both tucked into a pocket of space against the wall of the cab, shielded from the door. Anyone opening the latch and shining a light in would see . . . shit. If they really looked hard they might see the kid, but not Gibbs.

When he was satisfied with their positions the boy pressed the high point of the rifle he carried down into the manure in front of him, effectively burying it, and motioned for Gibbs to do the same. After the agent buried the nose of his weapon the flashlight blinked out and the interior of the truck turned black again.

They rumbled through the camp for several minutes, more trucks and voices swelling around them. They were getting closer to some center of activity. Eventually the truck ground to a halt. Gibbs guessed they were at a gate, or close to one. He'd had a hood over his head when he came into the camp but he knew there must be a fence of some kind around it.

"No se mueva," the boy beside him breathed.

No kidding, Gibbs thought. They were both still as stone, their heads pressed down into their knees.

What seemed like an incredibly long time passed. The truck inched forward.

There was a rapid conversation just a few feet away. Someone was talking to the driver, or to someone standing very close to him. A few seconds later a flap rustled on the right side of the truck and a draft of sweet fresh air entered. Light swept the interior, just visible from Gibbs' peripheral vision.

The light disappeared and the flap dropped. Boots crunched as they circled the truck . . . the covering on the left side lifted. Gray on black shadows chased each other across their dangerous little cave, and then the flap dropped back into place, the total black swallowing them up again.

A second later the engine grumbled back to life and the truck lurched forward.

They'd gone only a few feet when an explosion echoed over the camp.

 

* * *

 

_a/n: Translations:_

_¿Qué pasa?: What's happening?_

_espera: wait_

_¿Sabes quién es . . . en el helicóptero?: Do you know who is . . . in the helicopter?_

_El diablo: the devil_

_Le duele, yo sé: It hurts, I know._

_Sígame. Lentamente: Follow me. Go slow._

_No se mueva: Don't move._


	17. MTAC - Departures

"What is that?"

Kort didn't bother to look at Vance. The CIA agent stood very still, tracking the streak of light across the screen.

McGee retreated back to his seat, and to Abby. Kort had the aura of barely there control that Gibbs sometimes got, when very bad things were happening . . . like he was standing on a barrel of dynamite, holding down a fury that teetered on destroying everything in its path.

"That is an attack helicopter carrying Roberto Londono," Kort said, white-knuckle calm. "Tyler - tighten in as it approaches C6. Don't lose track of Gray, he's marked in blue on the NCIS feed. You have him?"

Kort stayed on the phone as the helicopter made its way to the camp. Both images became larger on screen until the chopper finally emerged from the black background of the jungle and swept over the muted gray of the camp. It flew almost directly over the blue dot.

"Agent McGee, I want anyone who gets out of that helicopter tracked through the camp," Kort demanded.

McGee nodded and got to work. When the chopper landed and four thermal dots emerged, they were marked in hot pink.

The audience in MTAC watched the blue dot peel off from the guard hut and make its way carefully through the camp, sticking to a slow route that skirted around the more populated areas. He met up with someone briefly, then returned to the hut rapidly.

Nearly half an hour later Gray reemerged with one bright white companion.

Abby seized Tim's hand again and squeezed.

Kort watched fiercely as the pink dots retreated into one of the houses and stayed there, white figures closing in and moving around them like stars in a dance.

It was well past midnight in Colombia now. They checked their watches as the end of the hour approached. By 0045 the truck carrying the blue dot had approached the gate . . . 0052 idling in line . . . 0058 they were almost there . . .

At precisely 0100 two blinking red dots emerged for a moment from the dark trees in the upper corner of the image. A bright light bloomed in one of the guard towers, and then - a huge white flare, exploding through the northwest quadrant of the camp, engulfing an entire long building.

Kort spoke low and fast into the phone. "What the hell was that?"

He listened to the analyst on the other end of the line. The others watched the screen, the intense white glow at the upper half of the picture slowly fading, the larger image obscured by smoke and growing cloud cover. No one was really looking at the fire, though, whatever it was. Abby turned and hugged the life out of McGee.

Gibbs and the blue dot were already outside the gates.


	18. Fire

The first explosion was followed by three more. Shouting and revving motors swelled behind them, but the truck rumbled on. The camp was already fading away.

The road they were on must have been atrocious but they moved over it steadily anyway, and at a good clip. Gibbs and the boy knocked hard into each other and the wall behind, gripping the slats in the metal bed beneath them to keep from being thrown forward into the muck. Fifteen bone-jarring minutes out, Gibbs felt the truck turn to the right. They ground to a halt and something knocked twice through the wall separating them from the driver sitting in the cab.

The flashlight flicked on.

The kid extracted his rifle from the manure and moved quickly to the back of the truck. Gibbs did the same, jumping out after him. He sucked in clean air gratefully and looked around to get his bearings. The moon was obscured by clouds now, but from the light of stars still shining through patches of clear sky he could tell they were in an agricultural field.

The kid settled the rifle strap across his shoulders and latched the back of the truck.

"Sígame," he said, and then he was running.

Gibbs did as he was told.

There was enough light to navigate by through the field, but when they reached the tree line a few minutes later they rocketed into total black. Gibbs stopped, put a hand in front of his face. He couldn't see it. He listened for the kid and heard him moving in front of him. His hand was grasped, and he was pulled forward.

They were headed uphill. Gibbs stepped high to avoid stumbling too often, but the way was relatively smooth. They must be on some kind of trail, a narrow one. Leaves and branches slapped against him constantly, and the hat he was wearing was torn away.

They climbed steeply for half an hour, Gibbs almost literally blind, before the way began to level out. The vegetation wasn't as dense this high up and a little light filtered through the trees. As soon as Gibbs could see well enough to move on his own his hand was dropped and they turned to the right, off of the faint trail and into the wild.

But . . . if they were turning right they were headed back toward the camp. Gibbs slowed in surprise. He almost immediately lost sight of the boy.

The hesitation lasted only a moment. Gibbs grit his teeth and followed his guide, the two of them running swift and silent through the dark. After half an hour they began to hear it. Shouting voices, faint but there in the distance. Soon after that Gibbs caught glimpses of orange flames and weird yellow-green smoke far below.

Green, thought Gibbs. Chemical fire.

Suddenly the kid stopped and crouched down. Gibbs almost ran over him. The boy picked up a dark shape – it was a pack. He flipped it open and dug into it, then threw it over his shoulders.

The kid's arm stretched toward him, holding something out. But Gibbs was already turning away, swinging the rifle in his hands to point up the steep incline to his left. There was something up there. He searched the black trees, straining to hear any movement.

"Boss?"

Gibbs was too shocked to move for a second. Then he lifted his finger off the trigger. "Tony?"

"Boss!"

A shape slid down the incline in front of him. No, two shapes. And then Dinozzo and Ziva were standing in front of him, eyes wide, looking just as shocked as he felt.

Something was thrust into Gibbs' chest. He looked down and caught a set of night vision gear before it dropped to the ground. A second later a stubby, lightweight assault rifle was literally tossed at his head. Gibbs snatched it out of the air and looked it over. It was a good gun, German model – better for accuracy and power than the AK's the boy had taken off the guards.

"Sígame," the kid hissed, already turning away. Gibbs looked quickly back to Tony and Ziva, feeling disoriented, trying to evaluate their condition as best he could in the dark.

"Let's get out of here," Tony whispered. _We're good_.

Gibbs pulled on the night vision gear and spun to take off after the boy. As he caught sight of him the kid cut left, moving up the mountain again, but not climbing the hill itself. He was in a steam.

The rocks on the stream bed were slippery, but regular enough to make climbing them easy. They moved rapidly, the noise of their retreat covered by the sound of the water. Eventually the kid left the stream behind and began moving through rough terrain again, climbing fast.

Finally they paused near the crest of the hill, where an opening in the trees gave a view of the spectacular fire in the camp below. They pulled off their goggles and stooped with their hands on their knees, panting quietly, studying the chaos below them. Tony wondered how long it would be before the cartel's men connected the mayhem to Gibbs. 

Probably not long.

As the agents regained their breath they looked to Gray, ready to move again. But the boy stood staring at the fire, mesmerized.

Tony was startled to see emotion there. Anger, maybe, or fear. Tony sucked in another breath, ran a hand through his hair and checked his weapon. Unconscious movements that usually helped to calm him down.

Ziva and Tony's part of the plan . . . well, it hadn't gone according to plan. When Gray took off for the camp they'd prepared for the worst, just in case, using the last of the natural light to attach the launcher to Tony's weapon and shift the grenades in Ziva's pack to an outer pocket for easier access.

They'd kept an eye out for patrols and practiced operating the launcher, Ziva simulating aiming and firing, Tony loading, trying to increase their speed. If they could fire and run they might be able to take out a target or two without giving away their position, maybe even conceal the cause of the explosions. They were prepared and waiting with over an hour to go when the sharp, beating report of a helicopter echoed through the valley. The tone was higher than the Black Hawk they'd flown in on.

"Attack helo." Ziva's tone was fierce, the stoic patience of the past week finally abandoned. She was in fight mode now, all targeted fury.

Tony nodded and looked at his watch. According to Kort's intelligence the higher ups in the organization flew into the camp on helicopters, but that was supposed to happen only rarely. The men at the top of this cartel maintained respectability within the government by keeping their hands clean, appointing lieutenants to handle the camps.

Whatever this helo meant, it was unexpected. They just had to hope it wouldn't derail Gray's plan.

And, Ziva pointed out, they must also hope that the sophisticated helicopter didn't have the modifications necessary to track them through the jungle. If it was equipped with thermal imaging . . .

They decided Tony would move forward and find a good firing position, Ziva waiting at the rendezvous for Gray.

There were two towers in reasonable range. He chose the one that was mere yards from where the agile helicopter now sat on a concrete section of airstrip, shining in the moonlight like an enormous black scorpion.

Ziva crept down to meet him, confirming Gray hadn't shown. At one minute past 0100 Ziva launched a grenade into the tower. The hit was perfect. Within moments the flimsy wooden platform was engulfed in flames. She aimed a second grenade at the helo but missed by a hair, the explosive slamming into the lab behind it instead. A third grenade punctured the tail of the helicopter and exploded, blowing the back half of the craft to pieces.

The agents turned and ran. As they scrambled up the slope there was another huge explosion, and then another. It wasn't from ordinance. Something in that lab had blown, and blown big.

Now, an hour later, two of the lab buildings poured thick black smoke, their chemical contents as volatile as a warehouse full of grenades. The internal explosions may even confuse the true cause of the mayhem.

Gray flinched back as yet another explosion rocked up from within one of the structures.

"You alright?" Tony reached out to steady him.

Gray jumped. A whipcord arm struck out instantly, punching Tony's hand away with surprising force. The kid turned to face him, the posture of his slight body menacing, his features enraged. "No me toques," he hissed.

Tony pulled back, startled, holding his hands up.

Gibbs watched the weird tension silently, looking from Tony to Ziva and back to Gray. Gibbs was used to being in charge in the field, but he didn't know what the situation was here. So he watched, and stayed quiet.

Gray turned sharply away from the three agents, and from the fire. He muttered a low, "Espere aquí," and melted into the trees.

A minute passed, then two. Five. Tony tightened his grip on the chunky assault rifle in his hands and scanned the jungle surrounding them, trying not to let the situation get to him. But the kid – their guide – was off somewhere, angry. Really angry. The surreal, steady cool Gray had always shown before had blown away, just like the lab they'd destroyed.

Whatever the kid's problem was, it seriously rattled Tony's nerves. He was spine-tinglingly aware that he and his team were alone except for Gray, vulnerable to the hostile forces moving around them. The kid was their one link back to the base – to survival.

Tony's eyes met Ziva's and he could see the same apprehension growing in her. Now that they had Gibbs out of the camp, other problems were taking priority. First and foremost, they were utterly, stupidly reliant on Kort's asset.

Tony flashed back to the CIA agent's harsh words at that meeting in the park. _He will detach himself from your team at the first sign of detection_ . . . If Kort was right, the kid may already be gone.

Tony surveyed the shadowy trees around them, trying to peel back the layers of dark foliage with a hard stare. Gray could be meeting with anyone right now. The kid could be setting up an ambush for them. Or he could simply be running, saving his own skin before the cartel's wrath came down on them . . .

Which would be nothing compared to Gibbs' wrath if they brought along a kid and then _lost_ him.

Tony squeezed the stock of the gun in his hands and tried to stop thinking. It really wasn't helping.

He was startled from his growing unease by Gibbs, whose patience had finally worn out. Their boss turned abruptly from watching the fire, monitoring the area for targets, to look squarely at Tony and Ziva. His face was a little thinner than it had been just two weeks ago, but his eyes, glinting in the faint light of the stars, were sharper than ever. 

"You two want to tell me what the hell you're doing here?"

* * *

 

_a/n: This chapter's Spanish:_

_sígame: follow me_

_No me toques: Don't touch me._

_espere aquí: wait here_


	19. Rain

Tony peered back at Gibbs through the dark.

He felt something well up inside him then that he didn't normally associate with being on the receiving end of a Gibbs glare.

Relief.

It was so sharp and sudden he felt his joints go loose. His knees literally felt weak. They'd found him, he thought. They'd got him. Tony could reach out and touch him. The senior agent looked his fill of Gibbs' glare and said the only thing that came to mind. "You need to stop disappearing on us, boss."

Gibbs was unprepared for honest Dinozzo – it wasn't something you saw too often. It took him a second to recover his train of thought and plow on. "Do you have any idea who these people are?" He waved a hand at the destroyed labs below them.

Just ten days ago Gibbs' displeasure could at least count on Tony's cooperation; Tony's own mind would usually begin kicking itself now, right in time with Gibbs' verbal lashing.

But not today.

He took a quick break from Gibbs' glare to scan the trees around them. "Yeah, I do. Better stop disappearing to dangerous places, Boss."

Gibbs stared at Tony. And Tony stared back.

If you could stand up to Gibbs and not be moved you were human titanium, a man made of kevlar. Tony had never been more grateful for his own irrational pride. It was pride that gave him the strength to do it – to stare Gibbs down, on this round at least.

And he _was_ proud, damn it. They'd found him and they'd come, and now they'd grabbed Gibbs back from the bowels of hell. If they'd yet to fight their way out of here, well, it was best to start that fight feeling as strong as he possibly could. Just like this.

There was movement to their left then, in the periphery of the agents' glares. They swung their rifles to face it at the same moment that the kid reappeared, materializing out of the trees and directly into their sights. He ignored the three weapons pointing at him and motioned to them sharply. Come.

Then he disappeared back into the black cover of the jungle, moving at what looked like a rapid clip. Tony glanced at Gibbs.

  
The team leader nodded.

Dinozzo plunged into the trees after Gray. He was followed by Ziva, Gibbs in the rear. They gripped their weapons tight, and moved quick and silent through the shadows.

**x**

Dark jungle. Green stars. An endless, menacing black tangle of trees, leaves whispering and strange. Screeching, slithering, rustling, buzzing - everywhere the fierce maelstrom of life. And always, the invisible enemy hunting, dark and quiet and deadly.

Just like him.

It was familiar. He'd been here before, alone. And he had not been afraid.

But he wasn't alone now. The faint green glow of his team moved in front of him. Young agents, bright and good and eager, pushing through the dark curtain in front of them. Bold in the face of enemies they did not understand. Careless before an indifferent, monstrous wilderness. Tearing into the unknown like a child into the street. Terrifying.

At the first hint of dawn they pulled off the night vision and stuffed the gear into their packs, not bothering to stop. Every step was one more between them and the cartel.

Until it wasn't.

Gibbs felt his senses orienting toward the threat a split-second before Gray sank down at the front of the line, Tony and Ziva following like puppets on a string. Gibbs could hear it clearly when they'd stopped. Movement to their left, and close.

Gray looked back at the agents following him, evaluating. The boy's hand went up to keep them still and the slight body shifted, coiled - he was about to move.

Gibbs popped upright and caught the kid's eye. The agent pointed firmly at the boy, stabbed his finger to the right, and swept his palm out flat. Retreat. And stay there.

The kid looked at him blankly, precious seconds slipping by. Then he held up two fingers. Gibbs nodded, and the boy backed silently away.

The team leader crept forward until he was in a huddle with Ziva and Dinozzo.

"Bait," he mouthed to Ziva, gesturing for her rifle.

He held up two fingers, in case they hadn't seen the kid's count, and pointed to Dinozzo and himself. _You're with me_.

Gibbs nodded to Ziva and she began to move through the trees to their left, feet just a bit careless, progress a little less quiet than it had been. He looked at Dinozzo and tugged on an ear. Tony nodded. Since the mission began he'd gotten better at stealthy maneuvering in a hurry. Nothing like practicing twenty hours a day with your heart in your throat.

Gibbs turned and began to walk slowly forward, absolutely quiet. The movements of the guards they were stalking covered any slight noise the agents did make as they slipped into position behind them.

The guards detected Ziva's presence and called out, ordering that she reveal herself. They finally caught a glimpse of her, a picture of innocence, as Gibbs and Tony leapt forward and tackled them. The Calera men were slender, shorter, and caught unaware. They were on the ground, subdued, before they could fire their weapons, Ziva's pistol aimed at their heads for good measure.

Gibbs took a breath and closed his eyes. Then he adjusted his hold on the warm neck beneath him and wrenched, snapping it easily. He stood and pushed Tony aside from the other guard, killing the second man before either the guard or his agents had registered his intent.

He looked the two bodies over quickly. They didn't have packs with any equipment that might be useful. Their weapons would only be a burden to carry. They'd leave them where they lay.

When he looked up he caught Dinozzo's open-mouthed stare, his appalled eyes. A match for Ziva's dark, wary gaze. He ignored them. The two of them shouldn't be here - the agents he'd trained had no business in a place like this, where justice didn't exist.

Gibbs turned and led them back to their starting point, where Gray was sitting with Ziva's rifle propped against the tree beside him. The boy stood when they reappeared and wordlessly continued up the hill.

**x**

Gray moved fast. The agents following him gripped their guns and regulated their breathing, scanning the area around them for threats, but mostly concentrated on keeping up.

They crossed a series of rivers, Gray and Gibbs scraping off the worst of the muck from the manure truck, and paused mere seconds to fill canteens. The kid wedged the AK he'd been carrying under a log rotting along the shore of a weedy stream, where it would likely never be found. Gibbs watched him with curious eyes.

"No quieres tu arma?"

"Más seguro sin ella," Gray muttered.

Gibbs frowned. He'd noticed the kid also had a pistol strapped to his back, hidden under his shirt. Still, safer without the rifle?

Tony passed Gibbs an empty collapsable canteen along with a course of antibiotics and some sort of nutritional powder that the Rangers had given him for Gibbs' water, designed to help him back from whatever havoc his system might be suffering after his days at the camp.

"Got a present from Abby for you, Boss." Tony held up the needle and syringe. Gibbs scowled but pulled up his sleeve, and Tony punched the locator into his skin, like Abby had shown him. He buried the empty syringe and case in the river mud.

Gibbs dumped the powder into his canteen without comment and Tony took a moment to look him over. The pace Gray set was hard and they were all hurting, but they didn't know what had happened to Gibbs at the camp. He looked okay . . .

Tony thought back to Gibbs' injuries in the past. He'd seen him shot before, and with broken bones, walking around and talking like nothing had happened. Unless he was in a coma Gibbs always _looked_ okay.

"You okay, Boss?"

Gibbs said nothing, just nodded toward Gray and stuffed his half-full canteen back into Tony's pack. The boy was moving again.

Four hours later they huddled together to rest in a clearing. The agents sat on a low boulder, Tony and Gibbs massaging sore knees. A deep, misty blue dawn had given way to a dark day. Drizzling rain started a few hours back and very little light filtered down to them through the dripping canopy. They were soaked and tired. But so far they had slipped through the trees unnoticed.

Gray crouched in the grass a few feet away, ignoring them totally. His knees were pulled up, his head bowed down, and in his dark, dirty clothing he looked more like an inanimate object - a rock, or a stump - than a boy. He seemed impervious to the rain, oblivious to the fact that he was sitting in an inch of water.

Gibbs had been almost silent since the tense exchange with his senior agent above the camp. Now he leaned forward and spoke. "Tell me how we're getting out of here, Dinozzo."

Tony tensed, certain a confrontation with Gibbs was looming. But he kept his eyes on Gray. He didn't like that strange posture . . . the kid hadn't looked like that before the fire. It didn't look like fear anymore, or even rage. Tony couldn't figure out what had caused it. Was the kid in shock after risking his life, sneaking through that camp? Or was he angry about the fire, about what he and Ziva had done?

The smashed spider leapt to mind. Casual violence, like a reflex. The days trekking in were so calm and strange, and hard to read, like that massive snake in the moonlight. Like the kid's dead eyes except for that one golden moment, when he smiled at a butterfly.

It was like the mystery explosions back at the camp, and Gibbs with those defenseless guards, and a thousand other things since they'd left Kort's base and jumped into a dark, abandoned field. The rules of this place, its life and the natural language - none of it made any sense to Tony. Somehow he doubted the things happening here would ever really make sense to him. He just wanted to survive long enough to escape it. Then he would pack this jungle away, put it behind him.

The kid sat there in front of them still as a statue, as if he wasn't even alive. It was unsettling. 

Of course, Tony knew the kid was dangerous before. But now Gray was confusing too, like everything else here, a volatile unknown.

If this were a horror movie, Tony thought idly, Gray would lead them to some quiet corner of the jungle, pull on a hockey mask, take out his machete, and hack them all to pieces.

"Dinozzo," Gibbs growled.

Anyway, the way the kid looked - he just didn't like it.

And he liked where the coming conversation with Gibbs was headed even less.

Tell me how we're getting out of here?

If we ever get out of here, Tony thought.

"Easy peasy, Boss," he finally said, cocky as hell. "We hike to the border of Calera land and hitch a ride on a helicopter with some friendly Rangers."

Rain dripped steadily from Gibbs' hair, running in little streams down his face. But his stare was unblinking. He'd never bought the Dinozzo asshole, not the first time they'd met and not for a second since. It was always a front, a deflection. The question was - a deflection from what?

"There's a team waiting for us at the border? Where's the pickup?" 

Tony laughed shortly. "Not exactly waiting. We signal them when we're clear. As for finding the right border – that's what we brought him for." He nodded his head toward Gray.

The three agents focused briefly on the slight form huddled in front of them, a pregnant pause following Tony's words. 

They'd _brought the kid in with them_. And as to where they were? Where they were going? How to communicate with their team on the outside? No clue, really.

Ignorance in any form was not to Gibbs' liking. And Tony had no doubt that Gibbs assumed, up till then, that the kid was _from_ the camp. Gray was actually encouraging that little fiction if the sudden switch to Spanish was anything to go by.

Gibbs' shock was palpable.

He ignored the boy for the moment and turned back to Tony, blue gaze cold. Tony glanced at the man at his side and couldn't help hearing an echo. An echo of cartilage, popping and grinding as Gibbs twisted, broke it. Executed two men with his bare hands.

"That's what he's _for_? You mean to tell me _you don't know_?"

Tony plowed ahead. There was nothing he could do about Gibbs' anger now. They'd done what they had to do, uncomfortable as that was for all of them when it came to the kid, and there was no taking it back.

"Well, the plan to find you came together pretty fast, Boss. We looked at some maps but they weren't very helpful."

Ziva was crouched above them, focus on the trees, scanning the area through her scope in a steady 360 degree swivel. But she chipped in to help Tony out. "We did not have access to accurate surveys of the area, Gibbs," she said. "This land has been under Calera family control for generations. Detailed topographical maps, if they exist, have never been released to the public. Satellite imagery revealed almost nothing but tree canopy. We were forced to bring a guide with personal knowledge of the terrain, and there was only him."

Gibbs considered his agents and turned to Gray. The boy seemed to feel it. He raised his head. 

"You speak English?" Gibbs asked.

His agents glanced at Gibbs sharply. Tony thought he would assume Gray was Colombian, a local, now that it was clear he wasn't from the camp. But Gibbs must have noticed at some point that the kid understood what they were saying.

Gray just looked at Gibbs and waited, letting his silence answer for him.

"Where'd they dig you up?"

"Clifton Park," Gray said calmly.

The kid was . . . calm. Tony relaxed minutely, even as he felt Gibbs shifting to look at him, confused.

"Ah. Well," Tony cleared his throat and braced himself. "That's in DC, Boss." 

Tony decided to go ahead and get it all out there. Gibbs didn't like that they'd brought a kid into this. He was going to like the fact that Gray was basically pimped out by the CIA even less. "We were introduced by Kort."

"Kort? _Trent Kort_?"

"Yeah." Tony didn't flinch, even though angry Gibbs had leaned in and was now two inches from his face. "Kort seems to be his . . . handler."

"His _handler_?"

When the boss started repeating words back to you he was about to go nuclear. Tony drew back, preparing to duck and cover. 

But the kid stepped in. "First he's my daddy, now he's my handler? Sounds dirty."

They turned from their argument to face him, watched the boy's lips quirk up into a small, lascivious smile. It was beyond disturbing.

Gray rose to his feet, a cascade of water running down his legs, and started to walk into the trees. "We need to keep moving."

"Where's the pickup?" Gibbs demanded.

Gray turned back and seemed to look him over. "Where I signal for it. I'm heading for the southwest border. Should be three days."

Southwest . . . Tony and Ziva stiffened. They weren't going out the same way they came in.

Gray glanced at them and back to Gibbs. "Come with me or not," he said. "I don't give a fuck." He turned and faded instantly into the murky light.

Gibbs set his jaw and motioned for Ziva and Tony to follow.

**x**

The rain burned off eventually. Steam began to rise from their bodies, even their clothes sweating in the humid air.

As the sun began to set and the shadows grew longer, Tony felt true exhaustion settle into his bones. His limbs didn't seem connected to his body as well as they should be. His joints ached. His chest felt tight. Sharp pain dug into his shoulders where the weight from his pack strained against the muscles in his back, and his damp feet were rubbed raw.

He tried to move smoothly, quietly, but his boots slipped on the wet leaves. He began to stumble, and in front of him he saw Ziva doing the same.

Gray never looked back to check on them as he had on the way in. He never hesitated over the route. Tony shut down the signals his body was sending him and pushed forward, step by step, breath by breath.

As the sun set and the shadows became impenetrable Gray paused for a few seconds to pull out night vision and pressed on, the agents behind him doing the same. Tony had the impression he was following a machine – steady and indifferent. A body immune to fatigue.

It had been dark for hours when Gray began to slow. They were winding their way into rougher terrain, the vegetation thick, the ground treacherously uneven. It became difficult for Tony and Gibbs to fit their bodies through the breaks in the stubby trees, and they'd skidded down countless wet rocks in the dark, almost spraining ankles too often to think about.

Finally Gray crouched and waited for the rest of them to close in. He held up his palm to signal they should stay where they were and slipped away through the trees. They waited in silence, listening to the nighttime rustling of animals and the unpleasant complaints of their own bodies.

Twenty long minutes passed before Gray reappeared, motioning for them to follow. A few minutes on they approached a hill. Gray stopped beside a narrow crevice disappearing into the steep slope and motioned for Tony to walk forward, into the pitch black shadow.

Tony stared at the crevice and back at Gray, who waved him forward again. He shoved the image of the Abby spider out of his mind and, gritting his teeth, walked forward.

After the first step he could see absolutely nothing, even with the night vision. He held his rifle vertically so he wouldn't jam the barrel into whatever was in front of him. The ground beneath him sloped downward and the walls pressed in. He had to turn his shoulders to fit as he kept moving blindly forward. The barrel of his gun scraped against stone above him. He hunched over to keep his head from hitting rock.

A few more steps and the walls on either side of him disappeared. He felt the ground beneath his feet even out. He continued into the space tentatively, giving Ziva and Gibbs room to follow him in. The soft scrapes of their footsteps were loud in the total black.

There was a long grinding noise behind him and Tony froze, eyes blinking uselessly.

"Lose the night vision." Gray's quiet voice echoed around them and Tony heard the distinctive scritch of a match being struck. He closed his eyes and pulled the goggles up over his head. When he opened them again he was standing in warm yellow light.

They were in some sort of cavern, maybe twenty feet deep, ten wide and high, rough gray stone closing in overhead and a packed dirt floor under their feet. A wooden door had been dragged across the narrow entrance. It looked like the stone around the mouth of the cavern was chipped away once upon a time, to mould exactly to that door. The fit would keep any light from escaping. Anyone passing on the outside wouldn't know they were there.

Tony felt his shoulders relax fully for the first time in days. 

He ran tired eyes over the space, checking for snakes and spiders, and ended up staring at a dusty pallet of water bottles and stacks of canned food that sat in one corner.

Gray set a glowing metal lantern on the floor in the middle of the space and retreated to the back of the cavern. The agents watched him shuck his pack, pull off his boots and socks, and wedge his body against the wall. As his eyes closed he spoke, voice hoarse.

"Four hours. Turn out the light."

"No watch?" Ziva asked.

"Can hear . . . " He fell asleep mid-sentence.

Gibbs propped his gun up on the right wall and motioned Tony and Ziva to take the left, so that the agents would flank the entrance. When they'd taken off their packs and removed their boots, Gibbs crouched down and extinguished the lantern.

**x**

Gibbs woke to a faint mechanical click.

He opened his eyes and followed a weak beam of light moving across the floor. It was Gray's flashlight, followed by Gray himself. Gibbs spoke when the kid set a hand on the door.

"Hey."

Gibbs raised his head as Gray glanced back at him.

"Back in an hour," the boy said calmly.

The light clicked off. There was a scrape, another, and then nothing.

Tony opened his eyes in time to see the light fade, and now kept them open in the nothingness of the cavern. He looked toward the spot where Gibbs lay, just a few feet away.

It was the pitch black that made Tony brave. And the fatigue. When he spoke his voice was quiet, but sure. "We had to come, Boss, and he was the only way."

A minute passed in total silence.

"You two know what he's doing?"

It wasn't a concession, or forgiveness. It was refocusing the conversation to something Gibbs deemed more useful at the moment.

"No," Ziva said. "But this is not the first time the boy has gone off on his own."

"He took a few field trips on the way in," Tony this time. "Never gone more than an hour."

They were silent as Gibbs pondered that.

"Kort say why he offered him up?"

"He claimed the Agency needs intel on Londono and the Calera cartel. Said the CIA wanted to know what you know, since you've been an official guest."

"And you buy that?"

"Don't know, Boss," Tony said, mock serious. "Have you been attending cartel board meetings during your stay at beautiful Camp Six?"

Oh, Gibbs was definitely pissed at his agents. He was beyond pissed. For the risks they'd taken to get here. For involving that kid.

And yet – he grinned faintly into the safe dark, where no one could see. It was selfish. But when it wasn't scaring the hell out of him, it was nice to no longer be alone.

He figured the hunger and exhaustion were making him a little giddy. "Nope, didn't get quite that far up the ladder, Dinozzo. Whatever Kort's after it isn't my information." Gibbs paused. "And I doubt that kid just snuck out for fun."

"You think that Gray is scouting the cartel's territory for the CIA?" Ziva mused. "It is possible. Kort said most of the area is impenetrable to satellites. And the Rangers based nearby do not enter Calera land."

"Don't know what he's doing," Gibbs grunted. "But everything I have on the Caleras is fifteen years old, and about dirtbags who are already dead. What do you know about the kid – name's Gray? First name?"

The agents were silent for a beat.

"He has gray eyes," Tony said finally. "Guessing that's the source of the name. We don't have anything real on him. Abby did a facial recognition search, got nothing. He's probably too young to be in the system anyway, or too close to the CIA. We tried to get fingerprints off him but the kid was onto it."

Gibbs ran a hand over his face.

Tony hesitated, then went ahead and said what Gibbs must already realize. "He may live in DC now, but Gray knows his way around the neighborhood. At least a few of the Rangers at the base we flew out of recognized him. He must've . . ." Tony really didn't want to say he must have lived at that camp. Or worked there. He'd go for vague. " . . . been at that camp, at some point."

They were quiet.

"If Kort does not want Gibbs for his information, then why send Gray into the camp after him?" Ziva asked. "If the CIA is simply after information there are safer ways than a rescue mission to get it, both for any intelligence gathered and for the boy."

A lot of questions, and no answers to be found here.

"Rest while you can," Gibbs said. "We'll deal with Kort when we get home."

Home.

Tony and Ziva were tired, and stuck in a strange world. But they closed their eyes and fell into the familiar, effortless security that Gibbs somehow always gave them. If that security seemed a little darker now than it had just a few days ago, it was no less solid. _When we get home_ , he'd said. We'll get home, that meant.

They dozed until Gray returned.

* * *

 

_a/n: This chapter's Spanish phrases:_

_No quieres tu arma?: You don't want your weapon?_

_Más seguro sin ella: Safer without it._


	20. Patrol

By mid-afternoon of the following day they'd dropped significantly in altitude. The air was warmer, the terrain less punishing than yesterday's.

They'd been moving along a shallow trench. It looked like the bed of an old stream, dried up long ago. A steep hill rose on their right side, a less drastic slope on their left. The canopy was thin over the trench and dappled green and yellow light made its way down to them. The sun finally dried their clothes, still damp from yesterday's rain.

Tony's first clue that something was off was Gray. He froze ahead of them, hand up.

Ziva and Tony stopped in turn. Tony could hear his heart, thumping over the shush of a million leaves whispering with their neighbors. He looked around, searching for the threat, waiting for Gray to lead them into retreat, like he did before.

Gray didn't motion for them to move anywhere. He turned back to look at them, eyes narrow. Then he ran into the brush up the bank to their left and was gone.

Tony started to move left too, checking over his shoulder to make sure the others had seen where to go. But Gibbs was standing still, looking up to the right. Ziva was turning to do the same. Tony followed Gibbs' line of sight and finally saw them. Eight rifles at the top of the bank, flowing into position, pointing down at them.

For a second everything was frozen in that green-yellow light, the patrol looking down at them, the team looking up. Outgunned from above, Tony thought. Fish in a barrel.

Three of the men peeled off from the group and made their way down the slope. One ran into the brush after Gray, the other two positioned themselves on either end of the agents. Then the rest of the rifles slid down into the trench, encircling them. They were all dressed like Gibbs, in gray-green fatigues.

One of them barked "Sus armas!" and three of the riflemen moved to stand behind the agents, pressing guns into their backs. Three more moved to stand in front and started stripping off the agents' rifles and packs, tossing them together in a pile.

Ziva and Gibbs said nothing. Tony kept silent too. He could understand and speak Spanish well enough, but his accent was a gringo's. One word out of his mouth and he would be pegged as an American, if he wasn't already.

The man in front of Tony reached up and ran his hands roughly through his hair, around his collar, and dipped into every shirt pocket. Hands yanked his sweaty undershirt up out of his pants, ran over every inch of his chest and back, and up and down his arms.

The guy who went into the trees after Gray came back alone. He spoke to the leader in Spanish that Tony couldn't follow.

Tony glanced to his right. Ziva's baggy long sleeve jacket had been tossed to the ground. The man in front of her had his hands up under her t-shirt, searching as roughly and thoroughly as Tony's guard had just searched him. She stood impassively, no emotion on her face.

Gibbs eyes moved from Ziva and locked onto Tony's. The younger agent nodded. They would suck it up, play it smart. They would wait for an opportunity.

Hands dipped into his pants pockets and the holster at the small of his back, pulling out his knife and backup pistol. They went into the pile. The man removed Tony's belt and found the second knife hidden there, and then plunged inside his underwear to move around his crotch.

Tony didn't think about where those hands were. He studied the men in front of him. The soldiers were silent, alert, clean-shaven. Clean in general, actually. Tony was suddenly aware of how he smelled, sweaty and moldy and damp, like a swamp. The soldiers' fatigues were regular and the M4 assault rifles they carried looked spit-polished. One of them had what looked like a disassembled machine gun strapped to his back.

When the hands reached his ankles, Tony was knocked to the ground from behind. The man in front of him examined his boots and started unlacing them. To his right he could see Ziva and Gibbs getting the same treatment. He let his eyes slide briefly over Ziva's blank face.

His boots were removed, searched, tossed in the pile. Finally a set of arms gripped him under the shoulders and hauled him back to his feet. His hands were secured behind his back with what felt like a zip tie.

The man who had given the initial order busied himself digging through Tony and Ziva's packs, sifting through the ammunition and medical kits carefully, studying the pile of weapons taken off them.

When the search was over he moved to stand in front of Tony.

"¿Quién eres tu?"

Tony looked down at him. He was pleased to have a good three inches on the guy.

A fist whipped out and backhanded him across the face.

"Who are you?" the man asked mildly. His accent was . . . Tony could admit that it was pretty good.

The fist came out again, smashing his cheek into his teeth, his head back toward his shoulder. This time he fell. The rifle standing behind him hauled him back to his feet.

Tony turned his head to spit out the blood filling his mouth. He straightened back up to give the prick an _I couldn't care less_ stare.

The leader looked him over and smiled a little, a knowing grin, like he had guessed all of Tony's secrets. Then he walked toward Ziva.

"¿Quién eres tu?"

She looked at him as if she were watching some distant figure on TV, no expression, no reaction. Like he was something far away. Like he couldn't hurt her.

The leader nodded to the rifle next to him and the man swung forward, ramming the butt of his weapon into her stomach.

Ziva doubled over, chest heaving, totally silent. She was hauled upright by the rifle standing behind her.

The leader reached up and ran a finger down a pale cheek. Down her sweaty neck.

"You do not want to tell me who you are?"

Now Ziva looked like _she_ was somewhere faraway, where nothing real could touch her. Not even the mercenary standing in front of her, standing too close, staring down into her face. His hand reached out to ghost over her matted hair, tugging on a stray curl. Anyone watching would have sworn she wasn't even aware that he was there.

Tony swallowed, trying not to look too much like he cared.

The leader released the curl he had wrapped around his finger, smiled at her, and turned away, toward Gibbs. He ran his eyes over the crusty scrape running down the side of Gibbs' face, probably left over from the kidnapping. The fatigue jacket had been pulled off, but he reached out to finger the olive green t-shirt Gibbs wore. It was the same as the one the patrolmen had on under their jackets.

"¿Quieres decirme quién eres tu?"

Gibbs looked at him silently, just as the rest of them had.

"¿No?"

The rifle in front of Gibbs muttered something into the leader's ear. The man cocked his head to listen, then stepped forward and lifted Gibbs' shirt.

There were welts there, a ladder of raw red and purple-black lines running up his stomach. The rifle behind Gibbs seized his shoulder and wrenched him around. His back was the same. Maybe worse.

Tony couldn't help staring. A voice in the back of his head whispered to be cool, to be blank - not to look like he cared -

The shirt dropped back down and the leader scrutinized Gibbs' empty face, then moved away. He spoke to machine gun guy for a minute and the two made their way back up the steep slope.

Two of the rifles followed. Gibbs was prodded up the slope next, then Ziva, and finally Tony. It took some doing without their boots, and their hands tied behind their backs, and Tony was a little dizzy from that last punch. When he slipped to his knees he was seized under the arm and dragged up the last few feet.

The final two rifles appeared at the top of the slope, carrying the agents' packs and weapons on top of their own.

The soldiers set off through the trees, the agents arranged single-file in the middle of the group. Tony's socks were soaked and his blisters on fire within the first two minutes. It wasn't until half an hour later that they came to a thin track winding through the trees, a camo green truck sitting in the middle of if. The patrolmen shoved the agents onto benches running along the sides of the truck bed, and secured the ties holding their hands to an iron railing running along the back of the bench.

The engine roared to life and they began to rumble down the track, gripping the iron pipe as they rolled over rough ground, the truck pitching like a boat in high seas.

It was absurd, but somewhere down under the fear, Tony's legs were screaming relief, and a Pavlovian part of his brain was thankful to once again be moving, as he generally preferred, with the help of a motor. He'd never been much for hiking.

* * *

 S _panish:_

_sus armas: your weapons_

_¿Quién eres tu?: Who are you?_

_¿Quieres decirme quién eres tu?: You want to tell me who you are?_


	21. MTAC - Oh Noes

"Oh crap. Timmy . . ."

McGee's head shot up. "What? S'wrong?"

He looked to the massive screen in front of him and studied it, blinking the sleep away, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Oh . . . fuck.

"I'll call Vance."

Abby nodded, riveted to the image. Three blinking red dots moved steadily in one direction. The little blue patch was a ways off, moving in another.

They no longer had the live feed, so they'd once again matched the GPS signals to old, static photographs of Calera land. Kort's mysterious satellite moved out of range of the agents after Gibbs made his escape from the camp. It didn't really matter, since all a picture of people moving through a jungle showed was the tops of trees anyway.

And the locators were all they needed to see that something had just gone seriously wrong.

McGee got the director's assistant and was patched through right away.

"Director, we have a . . . situation. Gray's separated from the team."

McGee could hear Vance frowning through the phone. "I thought that was happening periodically, McGee."

"Yes sir, but Tony and Ziva - when the guide wasn't with them they were stationary. They're all moving now, sir, and in different directions."

"Where?"

"Still almost forty miles from the border, director."

There was silence for a moment. "Call Kort, get him in here. Let me know when he arrives."

Kort left MTAC the day before at three in the morning, when the dots and the blue cloud were motionless for fifteen minutes straight. "They've stopped for the night," he'd said. And then, in that bored voice that sounded like he didn't really care, "I would appreciate it if you kept me informed."

But then the CIA agent stopped to check that McGee had his cell phone number. Like he really did care.

McGee didn't have to tell Kort that the director wanted him to come in. As soon as the situation was described the CIA agent interrupted to say he would be there in twenty. Twenty minutes later Kort and Vance stood next to McGee, eyes following the divergent paths marked out on the screen.

Abby looked up from her laptop, talking fast. "Gibbs and Tony and Ziva - taking variations in altitude into account they're averaging ten point two miles an hour. That's almost three times as fast as the fastest they moved before they seperated."

McGee nodded. Vance and Kort looked blank.

"They're in a vehicle!" Abby's gaze bounced back and forth between the two men, trying to figure out if this was good or bad. Hoping for good in spite of the crushing probability of bad.

Vance glanced at Kort. "Any chance they've been picked up by someone friendly?"

Kort kept his eyes on the screen. "No."

"What will it take to get the Rangers at that base out after them?"

"Nothing," Kort said. "They won't be sent into Calera land for any reason."

Vance set his jaw, frustration radiating out from his stiff shoulders. There was a _we'll see about that_ tilt to his chin. "I'll be in my office, talking to Sec Nav." To put pressure on the Agency, went unsaid.

Because it was all Kort's plan. Kort's doing that Vance had not just one but three of his best agents down there. Gibbs and Dinozzo and David - they were his people. If this all went to hell then Kort would damn well pay -

The director was up the stairs, at the door, when the CIA agent's voice rang out, harsh in the quiet room. "Wait."

Vance turned and looked at him, but Kort was still staring at the screen. 

"He's going after them," Kort said. He did not sound happy.

McGee frowned. "The kid? Gray is moving in the opposite – "

"He's in the river." Kort's hand swept in an arc against the screen. "Close in on his signature . . . there."

And it was true. The blue patch was moving through a smooth black band that mirrored Kort's sweep.

Abby frowned and bent over her computer, typing furiously. She hadn't calculated the blue cloud's velocity, she'd been concentrating on the red dots -

"The vehicle will be on a track - " The CIA agent walked closer to the screen, pointer finger following what might have been a slight depression in the tree canopy, one that stretched up from the current location of the red dots, fading in and out of the unrelenting jungle. It looked like a hundred other vague depressions all around it. But Kort's finger followed this one up to the top of the screen.

"Pull out. More . . . here." The depression in the trees and the black band of river did meet up, the faint shadow that Kort seemed to think a road following along the water for a bit before pulling back into the trees. "He's going to cut them off. Damn."


	22. Night

They rode in the truck for hours, the steady engine marking time. The Calera men tracked every shift and movement suspiciously, both out in the jungle and from their captives.

The path they were following wasn't really a road, and certainly wasn't wide enough for the tree canopy overhead to break, but it was roughly maintained. Muddy stretches were laid with planks. Fallen trees had been sawn up and dragged out of the way.

Just before dusk the truck slowed to a stop and two of the men sitting in the back hopped out. They shouldered packs and moved to the front, exchanged a few words with the leader sitting shotgun, and walked off. The truck rumbled on without them.

The three agents exchanged a look. Six soldiers now. Two to one.

They passed through dense trees and into more open grassland. Finally, as twilight fell, the truck slowed and the engine quit. The agents remained trussed up where they were, two guards watching them nonetheless, while the other men pulled packs from the truck.

They'd stopped in a wide grassy clearing, sloping down into a river valley hidden by trees. Two of the Calera men took off, carrying gear toward the stand of trees downhill, disappearing onto a narrow trail.

Four guards watching them now, and the agents waited for the mistake that would give them an advantage.

It never came.

The closest set of guards grabbed Gibbs, released his hands, and pulled him from the truck. Even if Gibbs could overpower the two closest to him, a reserve set stood well back, rifles at the ready to kill him if he tried anything.

Gibbs didn't try anything.

He was walked a few feet away from the truck and stopped. One of the guards gestured crudely in front of him with one hand, the other hand still secure on the trigger of his rifle. _If you want to piss . . ._

Gibbs had wanted to piss for hours. After he'd zipped up again a canteen was taken from Tony's pack, sniffed, and tossed to him. He drank a third of what was there and capped it as it was snatched away.

The guard closest to him seized hold of an arm and hauled Gibbs to the side of the truck, shoving him down to the ground on his knees. His arms were corded together again, then drawn up and secured above his head on one of the low outer railings that fenced in the truck bed. His legs were pulled out in front of him and tied together as well.

The guards stepped back and performed the same procedure with Tony, securing him a few feet down from Gibbs. When he was trussed up, Tony looked back for Ziva, just in time to see her socked feet hit the ground at the end of the truck. He craned his neck to follow as she was walked off to pee . . . averted his eyes from that specific bit . . . then her feet approached again. She drank the last of the canteen . . . Finally he could see more than her feet – she was shoved down to kneel in the dirt just as he had been, and her hands drawn over her head. But they tied her to the end of the truck while Gibbs and Tony were on the side.

Three of the soldiers muttered something to the fourth and walked away, toward the trail where the others had disappeared. Their one remaining guard leaned against a tree several yards off, relaxed and watchful as he lit a cigarette.

Tony tested the cord holding his arms to the truck. It was depressingly solid. He looked at Gibbs, tied a few feet off to the side, and raised his eyebrows. Were they going to stay mute?

Gibbs broke the silence. "They get everything off you?"

Tony wondered where Gibbs thought he might have hidden a weapon in that search. Under his tongue? Up his ass?

"Yeah, you?"

"Yeah."

Tony turned his head toward the end of the truck. Night was falling in earnest now. He could just make out the dark shape that must be Ziva's back and shoulders. "Ziva? Alright?" he whispered.

Her shoulders moved slightly, maybe as she turned her head toward his voice. "Yes. You?"

"Oh yeah," Tony said easily. "We're good."

She snorted.

They lapsed into heavy silence, listening and watching, trying to get a read on their environment. On anything in it they might be able to use. They would be moved again in the morning, there might be an opportunity then . . .

Eventually Ziva spoke, voice steady as a barely-there whisper could possibly be. "Tony, Gibbs. Stay quiet if they come for me. I may be able to get a weapon off of one of them. It will be our best chance."

Tony looked quickly to Gibbs.

The boss was silent, his head down.

Tony's mind groped for something, anything. But there was nothing to say that wasn't useless. Or worse, a lie.

Ten minutes passed, or maybe it was an hour – Tony couldn't get a sense of the time. He felt dizzy, a cocktail of adrenalin and exhaustion pulling his body in opposite directions.

It was entirely dark except for a low sliver of moon, their only source of light, when Gibbs shifted beside him. "Rest while you can, Dinozzo," he said flatly.

Tony was going to make a sarcastic protest. There was something pointy and sharp from the truck digging into his shoulders. His arms were tingling with blood loss from being suspended overhead and the plastic cord securing his wrists to the truck bit into his skin. He was starving, hadn't taken any pain relievers in far too many hours, and his legs were cramping. He stank of sweat and swampy river water, actually itched with how dirty he was. That in itself wasn't so bad, but by morning the bug repellant was sure to wear off and Tony was equally sure that the three of them would be eaten alive by mosquitoes and biting flies.

And he was only thinking about all of those things because he couldn't - he _couldn't_ think about Ziva.

But before he could say anything about the impossibility of falling asleep his eyes were sliding shut and his head was falling to the side, resting on his shoulder, and he couldn't remember what he'd wanted to say because he was falling.

**x**

When he woke the moon was high, his body instantly tense. Tony could sense Gibbs awake and alert beside him, and he scanned the trees for whatever had brought him back to awareness.

A figure emerged from the trail and walked forward slowly, lazily, stopping next to their guard. The guard got to his feet and stretched and the two men stood there for a minute, talking in low voices and smoking, the orange glow from their cigarettes the only color in the black and silver night. The new man let his cigarette fall to the ground, stepping on it with his boot and walking closer to the truck.

Tony could smell whatever he'd had for dinner. Onions and beef. His senses were hyper. Everything in the moonlit night was crystal clear, every drift of air like sandpaper on his skin. The guard's footsteps fell like grenades, his own heart thumped like some internal earthquake. Out of the corner of his eye Tony saw Gibbs drawing himself up, craning his neck to keep his eyes on the guard, just like Tony, as he rounded the corner of the truck and stopped in front of Ziva.

He stood in front of her for a long, tense moment. Then he stepped well back and set his rifle on the ground, a metallic brush against grass. The other guard moved in a bit closer, his own weapon resting secure and ready in two hands.

Tony twisted his body to look under the truck again. He could make out the black shape of the second guard crouching next to Ziva, leaning in. He was murmuring to her, too low for Tony to make out any of the words, or even the language.

Tony twisted back around and pulled down with all his strength on the cord securing his hands. It there was any weakness in the bonds, this was the time to find it. He glanced frantically toward Gibbs and saw him doing the same, solid body lifting off the ground, using all of his weight to pull down on the cord wrapped around his hands. But the ties binding their wrists to the railing were strong. The body of the truck creaked, actually rocked toward them a bit, but nothing gave.

Tony's breathing was speeding up and he took a moment to focus, to force it down. His first lesson as a cop – panic is useless. He needed to think.

Ziva was strong, she would make a move. This could be their chance, like she said. He and Gibbs just needed to be ready, like she'd said . . . breathe and be ready . . .

Tony twisted back to peer under the truck again. Her hands were still secured, but it looked like her legs were no longer tied together. He couldn't see the guard anymore, but her movement, her shape were different . . . the guard wasn't visible because he was on her.

There was a quick, sudden movement from Ziva's body. She used the leverage of her legs and flung herself forward, as far as arms tied to the truck let her go. A meaty smack, and a pained grunt from the guard. She'd head-butted him? Used a knee?

The man standing watch a few yards off laughed.

Then the sound of a fist connecting solidly with flesh, a sick thunk as Ziva's head snapped back to hit the truck. Tony stared at her still form.

The murmuring started again, sharper this time. Fingers were visible against the back of her dark shirt, moving, pulling her body forward, shoving the cloth up. The skin of her back was exposed, pale against the dark background of night. Tony's eyes were burning, but he could see her body leave the ground an inch or two as it was pulled out hard from the truck. The hands were at her hips, jerking down her pants.

She wasn't struggling anymore. How hard had her head hit the truck? 

Tony twisted forward again. He was panting softly, gasping for air.

He couldn't watch, couldn't sit there – he couldn't. He pulled out with all his strength on the cord holding his arms, flinging himself into it. Beside him he felt Gibbs doing the same. The chassis of the truck swayed with them, but the bonds held firm. Tony rested for a moment, when he ran out of air, and then tried again. And again.

He almost missed it.

A thump from the direction of the standing guard.

The guard grunted, very quiet, but it drew Tony's eyes. The man's mouth opened and moved. The expression on his face was weird - stiff and slack at the same time.

Hope shot up in Tony's chest. Maybe the guard would come to them. Try to stop them from pulling against the truck. Tony surged again against the ties. If he could lure that guard close he had _options_ he could rip out his throat with his teeth drive his head into his face punch his nose into his brain strangle him with his knees crush his neck -

Tony watched, breathless and confused, as the guard crumpled forward, gear and his weapon clattering dully as he fell.

A shape came out of the darkness behind him, a black streak already jumping over the body.

The guard on top of Ziva heard his friend collapse. He lunged back for his weapon, but Ziva's legs snapped out, a ninja blur. She caught him at the knee, brought him crashing down.

He rolled away, was up again - scrambling, the rifle -

The dark figure slammed into the guard and the two bodies crashed to the ground.

It was Gray. The man below him shoved and twisted, almost flinging Gray into the air, slamming the smaller body back down into the dirt, holding him there.

It was all over in seconds. But as Tony watched, time seemed to slow. The guard opened his mouth, gathering breath to yell something toward the camp.  Gray drew his knees up and punched his legs into the man's gut, driving the air from his lungs. The guard grunted and fell viciously forward, pulling his arms in, driving his elbows into Gray's body with huge force. The guard held the stunned boy down, a thick forearm across his chest. His other hand reached for his waist, a blade flashing into his hand.

"Knife!" Gibbs hissed. Gray's body jerked to the side, but not far enough. The knife plunged down into his shirt and Gray shrieked. The night seemed to narrow and freeze, trapping the thin scream until it echoed over and over, an endless stutter in a nightmare.

The guard sat up to draw the knife back, lifting his weight to stab again. Gray's body instantly filled the free space, curling up into itself, a hand straining down past his knees.

Tony caught a quick gleam of metal there, and then Gray's hand was too fast to see. But he had seen the boy's arm move like that before.

It whipped forward and up with shocking force, drawing along the guard's body, shoving the cloth of his jacket up. The blade gouged deep through the gut, skittered up over the ribcage, flayed the chest to the bone - ripped a path from hip to shoulder. The dead man reared back, knife in his own hand forgotten, and screamed. A dark spray of blood covered them both, gleaming like black oil in the moonlight.

Gray's hand shot out again, the blade slashing across the man's throat, cutting off the scream. Another black spray, and a silent wash of blood. The body fell heavily forward, pushing Gray back to the ground. He rolled the weight and staggering to his feet, snatched up the dead man's rifle and was moving, running up the slope. Heading for the black shadow of the tree line at the far end of the clearing.

There was no way that death scream hadn't reached the camp.

The agents found their breath and yelled after him. "Four!"

Gray was feet from the trees when two guards appeared at the head of the trail to the camp. They fired instantly, muzzles flashing bright, but Gray had flown into the brush and was gone. The guards sprayed the trees with automatic fire and ran forward, wood splintering to pieces, bullets chewing up the cover. They fired for long seconds, paused, fired again. One man held up a fist and there was silence.

The guards never stopped moving, sticking close to the trees as they skirted the clearing, heading rapidly, silently toward the point where Gray had disappeared. The agents peered into the dark, holding their breaths.

"Come on," Tony whispered. "Come on, kid." There was no sound or movement from the shredded patch of vegetation where Gray was hiding. Or maybe dying.

The guards were more than halfway there when two shots rang out, one after the other in less than a second, a tell-tale rifle flash well to the left of where they had concentrated their automatic fire.

Gibbs watched the heads snap back, the black forms of the guards fall.

Tony scanned the shadows where the flash gave away Gray's position, but saw nothing. The agents looked back toward the trail that led to the camp. Nothing there either.

Had he heard them say there were four? If Gray revealed himself now, came out to the truck to free them, he would be a sitting duck. On the other hand he was still outnumbered, and now the other guards knew he was out there. Either the two remaining men at the camp were waiting for him to show himself or they were already hunting him, stalking through the trees.

Minutes crawled by in total silence.

Tony glanced at Gibbs. The man was sitting forward, eyes wide and staring into the trees toward the camp, his head cocked.

Gibbs could feel his agent's eyes on him. "Think he's going after them," he breathed. Tony nodded, and they waited. Ten minutes, and then a shot from the camp. Several minutes later another one, fainter this time. And then silence.

They stared at the trail. Five minutes, ten, fifteen minutes passed - an eternity. And then Gray appeared, walking up from the camp.

He went to the slain guards at the far end of the clearing first, hovering over them for a moment, reaching out to check for life. Then he moved toward the truck with something in his hand.

He paused next to the first guard that had fallen, set a foot on his back and tugged out the knife buried between the shoulders. He wiped the dark blade carefully on the dead man's clothing, matter-of-fact and surreal, like some gruesome figure from a nightmare. When it gleamed silver again he turned once more to the truck.

The agents were silent.

It was one of the guard's shirts in Gray's other hand.

He walked toward Ziva, first. Tony held his breath, listening for her.

Tony twisted and looked under the truck again when the kid got close, watching as the black drape of the jacket dropped over the sides of Ziva's pale body. Gray crouched beside her. In the utter silence Tony heard the rasp of a blade against plastic cords. Ziva's arms fell to the ground beside her.

Gray placed the knife in her hand, stood and stepped away. He jumped into the truck bed, boots loud, and his voice seemed loud too, when he finally spoke.

"Have to move the truck and get out of here. We're too visible from the air."

Ziva rolled forward. Tony turned away after he'd seen that she'd climbed to her feet.

She appeared a long minute later, clothing straightened, hair smoothed and pulled firmly back, the long jacket Gray had given her buttoned over her t-shirt. It was one of the guard's bulky camo jackets.

She crouched next to Tony, examining his wrists, raising the knife to saw through the plastic ties. Above them Gray moved around busily in the truck, tossing things out and to the ground where Ziva had just been tied up.

"Alright?" Tony rasped

"Yes," she said quietly. "Now. You?"

"Yeah." He searched her face, but she looked calm, purposeful. She was gentle pulling the ties away from his wrists, blood flowing down his forearms as she peeled the plastic out of his skin. "That will need stitches," she observed.

Tony groaned as she lowered his arms down to his sides. The cuts didn't really hurt, but the muscles in his shoulders shrieked in protest. His numb fingers began to tingle unpleasantly. "Yeah," he said stupidly, and raised a clumsy hand to touch her shoulder. She hadn't looked him in the eye. "Zee - "

She pulled back, slicing through the ties around his ankles in one movement, and turned to Gibbs.

Tony knew he was staring. He just couldn't gather the will to stop, at first.

He pushed to his feet when Gray dropped down out of the truck. The kid didn't even glance their way as he moved toward the front of the vehicle. The engine revved a moment later and Ziva pulled Gibbs out of the way just in time. Gray drove it down the slope, leaving the clearing and the rough track behind, crashing directly into the jungle. Somehow he avoided the bigger trees, rolling down toward the river. The truck was hidden by foliage almost instantly, no longer visible when they heard the engine cut.

Apparently they weren't driving out of here.

Tony pulled his eyes away from his partner to look at the pile of gear Gray had tossed to the ground. It was _their_ gear, their weapons, Ziva and Tony's boots and Gibbs' battered, sturdy work shoes on top. Tony sank down next to his pack, pulling on fresh socks and his boots. Gibbs and Ziva did the same.

By the time they'd laced up and begun rearming themselves, the sick feeling that the last twelve hours had left was just starting to fade.

When Gray reappeared his own pack was slung over his shoulders again. He must have dumped it in the trees before he attacked that first guard. He climbed the slope toward them steadily, but a little slower than he had moved since they'd first set eyes on him back in DC. Tony's gaze studied Gray's body critically. He'd been sure that the guard's knife connected, but the jacket was dark and the moon was setting, its light fading.

Gray paused next to the agents and Tony stepped forward, reaching a hand out toward his shoulder, leaning down to get a better look at his torso. "Hey, you – "

He didn't sense the movement, just felt the cold metal hit the bottom of his jaw, the jarring snick of his teeth as they slammed together. A pistol pressed up into his throat.

"I told you," Gray said. "Don't touch me."

Gibbs and Ziva had been crouched over, sorting the gear into three piles. They froze, hands midair.

Tony swallowed and held carefully still. "Sorry. Wanted to see if you were hurt."

Gray didn't blink. His face was mottled with blood, but there was no obvious head wound – it must have been the guard's.

"Touch me again," Gray said, "and I'll kill you." He leaned in slightly, flat eyes staring up into Tony's. "What's one more?"

His voice was calm. Wondering. Tony could only stare back, about as horrified as he'd ever been. The metal barrel pressed firmly into his windpipe and he just stood there, waiting.

Sanity would return or he would die like those guards.

They stood like that for long seconds. Then Gray backed up several steps and turned sharply, toward the far end of the clearing, where the two guards that had fallen by the trees lay. The pistol in his hand returned smoothly to the holster at his back. "They have to be moved out of the open," Gray said, and walked away.

Ziva glanced quickly at Gibbs and Tony and moved to follow. "I will help him with those."

Tony ignored the lingering tremble in his hands as he and Gibbs each seized a set of arms and began dragging the guards fallen by the truck toward the closest trees. Tony had the one whose gut had been cut open. As he hauled it away a great dark smear of blood stretched after the body, shining wetly against the grass.

He'd worked around a lot of dead bodies. But he'd never hauled one around. It was heavy, the hands still warm, and the head jerked unnaturally, dragging and bouncing over the rough ground.

Tony turned away from it, focusing on Gibbs' back as they closed in on the trees. Gibbs stopped when they were about fifteen feet into the brush. Tony hauled his guard up, so the corpse lay next to the one Gibbs had moved, and dropped the arms he held.

When they turned to walk back, Tony glanced down at the body one last time.

He hadn't realized the guard's pants were undone, but they must have been. They'd pulled down as he was dragged over the ground, exposing him.

Something slammed up into his throat. His stomach twisted like a vise, over and over, and bitter fluid shot out of his mouth and nose. He choked up water and bile, finally gagging hard on nothing at all.

When it was over and his breath was back he spit and wiped his watery eyes, but the acid in his nose only brought more tears. He gagged and spit again, ignoring the man standing silently next to him. When his breathing was under control and his face was dry he straightened and headed back to the clearing. Gibbs followed without a word.

Ziva and Gray were waiting for them, Gray's form more shapeless than ever under one of the guard's fatigue jackets. His night vision dangled from one hand and an extra pack sat at his feet. He gestured at the bag and looked at Gibbs. "Can you carry this?"

From the tone of the question, he knew what he was asking.

Gibbs tilted the bag and looked inside. Several canteens of water, dark green MRE packets, and a pile of ammunition for the M4s that Gibbs and Tony now carried. Supplies from the guards' camp.

Gibbs slung the pack onto his shoulders without comment. Tony watched, numb, but the man didn't even flinch when it landed on his ripped up back. Gibbs nodded back toward the trail. "What about the others?"

"I put them in the river." Gray turned toward the trees and began moving up the slope, away from the camp and the track the truck had been following.

They crossed the clearing one last time and left it behind.

**x**

They stopped briefly at dawn. Tony and Gibbs cleaned and properly wrapped up the cuts on their wrists. Ziva let Gibbs take her head in his hands and examine the lump growing out of the back of her skull. She held still, tense, as he peered into her pupils, checking responses with a flashlight.

After Gibbs moved away from her Ziva still wouldn't look at Tony. But she held out a hand to where he sat. Tony reached out and grasped it, unspeakable relief flooding him. He squeezed gently and she squeezed back, and they sat there together for a few silent, good minutes.

Gray casually moved away when any of them approached. But they watched as he bent down over a stream and splashed the worst of the blood from his face and hair, the movements of his arms stiff and slow.

At midday they crossed another deep river and stopped to rest on the other side. Tony finally exchanged a look with Ziva as Gray pulled a foil packet of antibiotics from his pack and swallowed them down with an energy bar. It was the first time they'd seen him take any pills.

As twilight fell Gray was still moving smoothly, but stopping more often, ten second breaks to catch his breath before moving on. A dark stain appeared at his side and began to spread.

They moved through dusk for an hour before darkness wrapped around them again. Finally Gray sagged against a tree and slid to his knees, breathing carefully, face actually gray with exhaustion. The agents gathered silently around him, holding off a respectful distance in deference to the pistol he carried – Tony back farthest of all.

They took out canteens and their night vision quietly. After a moment Gray did the same, hands pulling at the zipper on his pack sluggishly.

Gibbs had watched him closely all day, but said nothing. Now he followed every movement like a hawk. "You're bleeding," he noted, nodding to the wet stain on the bulky jacket.

Gray followed Gibbs' gaze down to the blood. He set his canteen on the ground without comment and dug back into his pack, pulling out a roll of gauze. He reached under his jacket and began winding it around his ribs. After many passes he tore the gauze with his teeth and tied it off blind, hands slow but confident under his shirt.

Gibbs waited, watching silently, until the boy was still again. "You need to rest."

Gray didn't say anything. He sipped slowly from his canteen, then stuffed it in his bag and started to climb to his feet.

"Hey." Gibbs didn't reach out and grab him, as he would've an agent under his command. But his body leaned forward, and his voice was short.

Ziva and Tony watched closely, eyes on the kid's hands.

Gray finally looked Gibbs in the eye. "Not yet."

"How much longer, tonight?"

Gray hauled himself the rest of the way to his feet. "Two hours."

"Want me to take that?" Gibbs nodded toward Gray's pack.

"No." Gray slung the straps of the bag over his shoulders and walked into the trees. The agents followed grimly.

It was more than two hours before Gray gestured to them to wait and moved ahead. He was back a few minutes later, signaling to follow. He led them to a deep rocky overhang. At one end the earth had been built up to meet the rock, forming a sort of cave. It wasn't as secure as the cavern, but still a lot better than sleeping in the open.

Once inside, Gray used his flashlight to make his way to the deepest shelter of the overhang. He dropped his pack and leaned against the rock, sliding to the ground in a controlled collapse, pulling the pistol from the holster at his back and cradling it in front of him.

"Four hours," he said, eyes closing, cutting the light.

Still sitting up.

Tony glanced at Gibbs and Ziva and then toward the mouth of the makeshift cave. The rock of the overhang farther down curved forward, blocking the entrance to anyone who wasn't close and standing right in front of it. "Safe to turn on a flashlight here, Gray?"

"Yeah."

Tony dug in his pack and clicked on the light as Gibbs touched Ziva's shoulder and nodded toward the back of the cave. She pulled an identical flashlight and the medical kit out from her own pack and approached Gray slowly.

Gibbs stepped back toward the mouth of the cave, checking his rifle and looking out at the night, away from the the pair of them. Tony followed, turning off his light.

Ziva crouched a few feet away from Gray and spoke quietly, but her voice carried in the rocky space. "Your wound needs to be dressed."

"I did."

"It will be better if you let someone do it for you," she said.

Gibbs and Tony gave up the pretense and looked back to watch. Gray was staring at Ziva's face, mesmerized by her. Totally absorbed, just as he had been back at the park in DC, on that first day he'd seen her.

Silence, and then he lifted his hands and fumbled open the buttons on his jacket. She helped him to open the shirt and cut away the stained gauze that wrapped tightly around his abdomen, right over his t-shirt. Finally she pulled up the ripped undershirt, the cloth stiff with blood and sticking to the cut. He didn't make a sound as she pulled it away.

Ziva used a wipe from the medical kit to clean the worst of the crusted blood away, looking at the wound closely. The cut started shallow in the middle of his stomach and gouged up into his side. He had moved out of the way of the blade just in time, the guard's knife slicing him deeply as he dodged it.

"This was close," she said evenly. "I'd like to disinfect the cut, though it will hurt. Is that alright?"

Gray nodded. She picked up a little plastic bottle of peroxide in one hand and rested a hand against his chest with the other. When he didn't protest she pressed firmly down to hold him still and tipped the bottle over the wound.

He jerked and grunted. Beside Tony, Gibbs went rigid, jaw clenched as he watched the boy pant.

"That is the worst of it," Ziva said, working quickly to wrap the cut again. When it was clean and tightly bound she sat back. "Do you want to keep the t-shirt?" Apparently he did. She pulled it back down and closed the jacket over it.

"Is any of the other blood yours?"

He murmured something too low to hear from where Tony stood. "You are welcome," Ziva said quietly. And then, "I owe you far more. Rest now." She pulled his upper body away from the wall and lowered him down to the ground.

He reached out a hand and brought the pistol with him.


	23. Delirium

Four and a half hours later Gibbs sat up. Tony and Ziva shifted and did the same. Light was creeping in from the mouth of the overhang. Dawn.

Gibbs staggered to his feet and moved stiffly toward the gray day, crooking a finger at his agents to follow. They stood close together at the edge of the shelter, sharing a canteen of water mixed with some of the MRE powder taken off the patrol. It tasted like Tang - chemicals, sugar, a fruity bouquet. Whatever it was, it took the edge off, chasing down far more prescription ibuprofen than made up a recommended dose.

"Not so sure about waking him." Tony's voice was barely there. "He didn't sleep right."

Gibbs nodded. The boy had been restless in the night, and once they'd been woken by faint noises of distress. Gibbs had whispered for Ziva, but the sounds stopped before she got to her feet.

"He needs rest, but he also needs medical attention," Ziva said. "That cut is deep and infection is already setting in. Oral antibiotics are not enough."

Gibbs rubbed a hand over his face.

"That patrol didn't know who we were," Tony said carefully. "That make any sense to you?"

Gibbs' eyes locked with his. "No."

"Maybe the fire damaged more than the labs."

"Maybe," Gibbs said quietly, looking toward Gray.

"We have not come across as many patrols coming out as we did going in," Ziva said. "I thought there would be more. And searches from the air."

Gibbs nodded. "Wake him up. Whatever's keeping the cartel at bay won't last forever."

Gray woke as she approached. He rose wordlessly and reached into his pack, skipping any breakfast but following his usual morning routine of toothpaste and mouthwash. The agents ate most of the remaining meal bars, and they were moving again.

By noon Gray was pale and sweating and still hadn't eaten since the night before. Tony couldn't imagine it - with constant movement over rough terrain they were burning through calories like fire through gasoline. When they stopped for a break Gibbs crouched in front of Gray without preamble, Tony and Ziva hovering at his side. "You got something for that fever?"

Gray nodded, careless. "Took it."

"Take another one." Gibbs held out one of the extra-strength ibuprofen.

Gray looked at it suspiciously. "What is that?"

"It suppresses fever," Gibbs said shortly. "Take it."

Gray swallowed it down with gatorade from his canteen.

"How far to the border?" Tony asked.

"Five, six hours. They drove you closer." Gray's tired eyes swept over them and closed. "Lucky bastards."

They stared at him, then glanced at each other. That was a lot of unnecessary words. For this kid, anyway. If the fever was making him talkative . . .

Tony tried it out. "Speaking of, how did you catch up with us?"

Gray squinted up at him. "I run. Cross-country." He rose to his feet, swaying in place. "Coach says I'm gonna make varsity." He laughed as if he'd said something hilarious. Not a laugh from his belly. It was high up – from his throat - a weird sound in the quiet. He turned away, still grinning, and continued leading them through the brush.

Ten minutes later he paused, put a hand on a tree, and coughed up a stream of blue gatorade. He pressed a hand against the spasms in his stomach and wiped his mouth, moving on before the agents had even reached him.

Hours passed before they stopped once more, at the base of a hill. Gray had started to climb it, swayed, and dropped to his knees. He blinked as Ziva moved quickly to him, smiling at her darkly - amused, apparently, by his own deteriorating condition.

The agents hunkered down, watching him pull out a canteen and sip from it. His face was flushed now instead of pale, hair plastered to his head with sweat.

"How far, Gray?" Gibbs asked.

"Few hours."

"Abby and McGee will be following our locators," Tony said quickly. "If we're that close to the border they might send in our ride early."

"Rangers don't come onto family land," Gray countered. "Won't pick us up till they get the signal."

"Send the signal," Tony said promptly.

Gray sipped slowly from the canteen, mocking the urgency in Tony's voice, in his eyes. "No."

Tony ran a hand through his hair. Kort had refused to share any information on how the signal would be sent. It was clear that the pick-up was for Gray. If the NCIS agents wanted to ride along they'd have to play by Kort's rules – and make sure the kid stayed safe.

"Gray, Pete and Rodge are your friends. If they knew you were hurt they'd come for you."

Gray shook his head and shoved his canteen into his pack.

"Jesus, kid. They're _Rangers_. They're not going to care about the risk, not if we're that close."

Gray climbed to his feet. His face looked thin, his cheeks still smooth as Ziva's. "Deal is I call when we're out," he said, "when it's safe."

An awkward pause, and Gibbs broke the tension. "Safety first," he mused. "Interesting concept. You interested in a job?" His gaze drifted over Tony and Ziva. "I might have an opening. Or two."

Gray turned away, started up the hill again. "You got minors on the payroll at NCIS?"

Gibbs waved at his agents to follow. "About that. Exactly how far are you from being legal?"

"Doesn't matter," Gray's voice floated back, already choppy, short of breath. "You can't afford me."

Late that afternoon they crossed a shallow river, hiked through thick growth for another hour, and stopped at the crown of a hill. They had a view over the trees they'd just come through and a clearing up ahead that might have once been a field. Gray dropped his pack to the ground and followed it down, easing his pistol forward again to rest across his knees. He propped the pack against a tree and leaned back against it, eyes sliding closed.

"We're here," he said. And then, faintly, "Keep a watch."

"Hey, hold on," Tony hunkered down into a crouch. "We're where? Past the border?"

"Yeah, border's the river." Gray's hand waved back the way they'd come. "Should be safe but . . ." he hitched a breath and trailed off, hand pressed tight into his side. When he spoke again his voice was steady. "But they're looking for us. I think."

"So," Ziva said, "You have sent the signal?"

"Not till it's dark."

Tony actually gripped his head in his hands.

Gray looked at him. "Only a couple hours."

Gibbs accepted that silently and turned away, walking a bare minimum security perimeter around the hilltop. Ziva sank to her knees and swung her pack around to dig through it. "I had a commander in Mossad like you, Gray," she said tiredly. "We hated him. Here," she held out her hand, a tiny white pill in her palm. "Try again. Don't drink so much with it this time."

He opened his eyes, grasping at the pill clumsily.

"But we loved this commander too. We used to argue, when we were bored, about whether we hated him or loved him more."

She paused, nudging him in the knee. "Try to stay awake."

Gray somehow cleared his throat without moving any of his upper body. "What's Mossad?"

Ziva watched him swallow the tablet and dug through her bag for the bug repellant. She smeared it over her face and hands and then did the same for Gray, telegraphing her movements to avoid startling him. The chemical scent of the cream mixed into the days' worth of dirt, blood, and stink that encased them both. She passed the bottle to Tony and turned around, sitting in front of Gray and swinging her rifle forward to sweep the area through her scope.

"Mossad is like the CIA where I am from," she explained. "You would make a good operative."

A few feet away Gibbs and Tony had finished with the repellant and also pulled their guns forward, scanning through their scopes, sitting around Gray in a circle.

"Where you're from. With the Hebrew."

"Yes. Israel."

Gray cleared his throat again. "Well, fuck that. The CIA sucks."

The three agents grinned down the sights of their rifles. "Couldn't agree more," Tony muttered.

They were quiet, and Gray's head began to nod forward. "That's true about commanders, though," Gibbs said, voice slow and steady as the movement of his scope. "The good ones. Had a captain in the Corps like that. Complete hardass, pushed us to the limit."

So the kid's fever was enough to make the boss talkative, too. Tony and Ziva almost perked up, they were listening so hard. Gibbs smiled, adjusting the lens of his scope. He didn't mention much about his past - but of course, nothing else would make it so interesting to the young investigators he worked with. "But he fought for us just as hard," he continued. "Men loved him and hated him about the same. Guess you're officer material, Gray."

Silence. Then, "Know you're a Marine. Read your file." And with quiet precision, "Fuck the Marines."

Tony raised his eyebrows.

"Oh yeah?" Gibbs was grinning, they could hear it. "Want to be a Ranger?"

"No." The kid laughed softly. But it wasn't a funny laugh, or even that other cold one. "I hate this shit."

Tony gripped the rifle in his hands and stared hard into the trees.

"So what do you want to be?" Gibbs' voice was _kind._

Tony and Ziva shared a glance. Before, Gibbs had been a shade too nice with Gray, sure. But not _really_ nice. He'd spoken to Gray like a colleague, like a favored liaison from some other agency. The kind voice, though - that was the way he talked to kids. Hurt kids. Scared kids.

"Got to get there first," Gray said tonelessly.

Tony glanced back when Gray coughed, watched him lean to the side and retch up blue water. Tony felt a sudden crush of helplessness. Of responsibility, and looming failure. If this was what it felt like to be a parent he definitely didn't have the balls. No wonder his own father ran in the opposite direction. No wonder Gibbs lost it when Kelly died.

Gray reached for the canteen beside him to rinse and spit, leaned back and closed his eyes. But not before his gaze slid past Tony's, and lingered there. Just for a moment.

It was strange - his eyes were so calm.

Tony turned back to his gun.

"You'll get there," Gibbs said. "Hey. Stay awake."

"Didn't take you for an optimist," Gray said clearly, if slowly. "From what Kort said."

"Kort doesn't know me." Gibbs' voice was mild, but there was steel there, under it.

"That so?" The tone was idle, knowing. . . He was _teasing_ Gibbs.

Ziva coughed. Tony didn't bother to hold back a snicker. Gibbs' voice was as dry as they'd ever heard it. "Think I'm gonna take back that job offer."

"Good," Gray said. "You can stuff your job offer."

"Hey," Tony said. "I'm with you on the military, but being a cop is a good gig."

"Yeah," sarcastic. "This is great."

Tony raised an eyebrow. Waste of a good cop, he thought. Tough and a damn good shot, too. Maybe not the best thing to bring up the day after the kid killed six men. The first time Tony'd killed someone . . . And that guy that'd been after Ziva, he wasn't just killed - the kid had butchered him, basically -

Gibbs, as ever, was not shy. "You're a good shot."

Gray didn't respond.

The shadows were lengthening and Tony checked his watch. Just after 1930. Half an hour more and it would be dusk, almost dark.

"I think a job that does not involve getting into fights or being shot at would be very sensible," Ziva spoke up. "Perhaps I will explore a second career with you, Gray."

"Hey," Gibbs objected.

"Gibbs has already retired from NCIS once, so he could not possibly have anything to say against it," Ziva continued blithely.

"What'd you do when you retired?" Gray's voice was heavy with fatigue.

"Sat on a beach."

"Huh. Sounds good."

"He built hot tubs, actually," Ziva said. "Teak ones."

"I wanna retire with Gibbs," Gray mumbled.

"Kid, you've supposed to have a career first, before you retire," Gibbs said. "Unless you're counting your current gig with the CIA? That pay well enough to let you hang up your hat at . . . what, fourteen?"

Judging by his voice, Gray thought Gibbs' observation was funny. "I think this is called fishing. Are you fishing for information, Agent Gibbs?"

"Yeah," Gibbs said bluntly.

"Huh. And I heard you were . . . good . . . " Gray's voice trailed off, then found its way back. " . . . at reading people."

Gibbs frowned. That didn't sound like Kort.

"What're you gonna do for second career, Ziva?" Gray asked.

"I think I would like to be a dancer. And you?"

Quiet. Gibbs reached back and grabbed Gray's foot, giving it a little shake.

"You wrapped that wound well," Ziva said. "You could be a doctor."

"Sick people?" Gray coughed from his throat, continued on dreamily. "And twelve years of school. That's the alternative to the getting-shot-at job?"

Tony smiled despite himself. The kid was funny when he was delirious.

"Dancing's good though. I think teaching . . . be cool. All the kids sucking up to you. And there's recess. Dodgeball. Kickball. Um . . . tether ball. Be good."

Ziva gripped her rifle tight and then forced her fingers to relax, cursing the Reynosas for starting it all. For bringing them here. "Yes," she echoed. "That does sound good."

"Summers off," Tony pointed out. "Not a bad plan."

"Are you going to join us in our second careers, Tony?" Ziva smiled even as she tracked movement through her scope. Something fast . . . she followed rustling through the trees until a gorgeous pale bird broke out of the canopy and climbed into the sky.

"Hey, I'm already on my second career," Tony said. "I was a basketball player in my first life."

"Buckeyes."

Tony frowned, looked back over his shoulder. "How'd you know that?"

"Read your file," Gray said easily, eyes still closed. "Third career then, for Tony. I'm seeing . . . a coach. Plenty of elementary schools recruiting, you know."

"Hey," Gibbs broke in. "Leave me a few agents, would you?"

"No worries, Gibbs." Tony reached around blindly to pull the very last power bar out of his pack and began unwrapping it with his teeth, one hand still on his gun. "Just because the kid here wants to be a teacher and surround himself with yet more kids doesn't mean I wanna be overrun with kids."

"I think I'm insulted," the kid said.

He's too good at this, Gibbs thought. The banter. The agents did it out of habit, to keep themselves and the civilian in their midst calm.

The civilian didn't usually banter back. Particularly not _this_ civilian. He'd barely put two words together in the past three days. Unless -

Tony had let up on sending the signal early. Ziva was reassured that Gray was surviving, if not exactly in glowing health . . . and . . . fine. Gibbs was reassured too.

Was the talkative streak all down to the fever? But Gibbs didn't think that Gray was really delirious, just . . . loose.

So why the engagement from Gray now? Unless the kid was calming _them_?

 _Managing_ them?

Gibbs shook his head. "Nobody's retiring until I say so."

Tony was puzzling things out. Kort gave Gray their files? If so, either the files were incredibly patchy or Gray was playing them, not letting on to what he knew.

Now was clearly the time to ask. Kid was much more informative when he was only borderline lucid. "Hey, Gray. You knew I played for the Buckeyes but not that Ziva is from Israel?"

"Kort didn't want to give me what he has on Ziva." Gray let a little of his curiosity come through. "Said her official file was real short anyway."

Gibbs frowned. That was . . . interesting. For one thing, Gray hadn't answered the question. But he had redirected interest, back to Ziva. And it was a question for Ziva that started the conversation, wasn't it? What's Mossad, he'd asked.

Gray kept the fact that he'd read their files to himself, till now - the last few hours of the mission. Why bring it up at all? Gibbs could think of only one reason. He was fishing for information, too. Information from the team. But what exactly was he trying to ferret out?

The CIA probably knew more about Ziva's life before NCIS than Gibbs himself did. But if what the kid said was true, Kort was deliberately keeping her past quiet.

A long pause in the conversation - Ziva's chance to fill in the blank, to explain. But the blank only stretched out, getting weightier as the seconds passed.

"Think your career at Mossad's been classified, Ziva," Gibbs finally said.

"It would seem so," she agreed, voice easy, distant.

Gibbs eyes narrowed at the dodge.

Tony checked his watch again, rolling his eyes at the endless Mossad intrigue. Here in Colombia it was 19:45 and they were so close to home he could taste it, but it still wouldn't be totally dark for almost an hour.

Shuffling behind him, then. "Going to call," Gray said. "Then we move fast. Caleras can track the phone."

They shouldered their packs and watched Gray pull a compass and a slim black cell out of his bag. He climbed to his feet and turned the phone on, punched in a number, waited for a beep, and turned it off. He studied the compass for a second.

Then he headed out, skirting the edge of the clearing, checking the compass every few minutes. Somehow he was moving fast, as promised.

They travelled directly south. Twenty minutes later Gray paused, breathing ragged, leaning into his side. He turned the phone on again and punched another number in, waiting to hear a tone on the other end before turning it off and reorienting due east.

The kid was sending their coordinates back to the base, and in some sort of pattern. Their movements were the code, verifying the authenticity of the signal.

It was growing dark quickly now and they pulled out their night vision, Gray still checking the glowing points of the compass every few minutes, the three agents scanning the trees with their scopes.

At one point Gray stopped and the agents paused, assuming he was calling again, or getting his bearings. But he put a hand on the trunk of a tree and sank abruptly to one knee.

Tony was closest and reached out, unthinking, to grab him before he could topple over. The kid was wet with sweat, body hot even through his clothes.

Tony held his breath, hoping he wasn't about to get shot.

Gray climbed slowly back to his feet.

"Will they pick us up here, Smoky?" Tony asked casually. "Or do we have to move again?"

"Yeah," Gray whispered. "Have to move." He bent close to the compass, reading it. "That way," he gestured in front of them. Due south.

"Alright." Tony slung an arm around Gray's waist and pulled him south.

Ten minutes later Gray called again. Then he checked the compass and turned east.

"Zag," he said.

Tony, breathing hard now, dutifully hauled him in the new direction, Gibbs and Ziva flanking them.

They were still moving rapidly forward when his ears picked out the whir of a helicopter, faint in the distance. A minute later the bird roared in close and Gray flipped on the phone one last time. They ducked their heads against the wind as the Black Hawk touched down not forty feet away.

Tony and Ziva grabbed Gray by either shoulder and ran forward, hoisting him into the belly of the chopper. A hand reached out to grab him and they flung themselves in after, Gibbs following on their heels. The machine lifted off the ground instantly, climbing high and fast.

The agents slumped, panting, against the humming walls.

They'd made it.


	24. Status

Pete peered at Gray's face as they rose into the sky, shining a penlight into glassy eyes. Someone else must have been in the copilot's seat.

Ziva lurched toward him, snatching up one of the headsets secured to the wall and speaking into it. "Gray is wounded, he needs a medic."

"That's me," Pete said calmly. "What happened?"

"Stabbed in the abdomen, forty-eight hours ago. It is deep but did not appear to hit anything vital. He developed a fever and became weak. He may be dehydrated, he has been vomiting."

Pete nodded, hands busy, face calm as he stuck Gray with an IV and began pumping clear fluids into him. He shouted something into Gray's ear and the boy closed his eyes, slipping into unconsciousness.

Pete gestured for a hand and Tony helped him lift Gray onto a stretcher. The medic cut away the fatigue jacket and t-shirt, but on inspecting the gauze around the wound left it alone. He checked Gray's vitals once more and glanced up at the agents strapped into the opposite wall of the chopper, watching him closely. He spoke into the headset to Ziva. "You three okay?"

Ziva nodded.

The flight back to the base took almost an hour. The pilot - Rodge again - radioed ahead. When they touched down four men came out to meet them, each grabbing a corner of the stretcher and ferrying it smoothly into the closest building. The NCIS agents grabbed their gear and followed.

Gray was transferred to a bed in a spartan infirmary. The gauze covering the wound was finally cut away to reveal the open gash across his stomach. The skin around it was irritated, inflamed. Infected.

They stood back in the hall and watched, Gibbs and Ziva absolutely still, Tony's hands flexing. Infection could lead to sepsis. Fatal sepsis. Tony wasn't sure he could handle it. If the kid died, for _them_ -

Gray's body convulsed.

"Gray." Pete put a hand out to still his shoulder. "You with us?"

Gray jerked away. And then he started to scream.

"Hold him." Pete strode to a cupboard full of supplies. The men who'd carried the stretcher seized Gray's arms and legs and held his body to the bed. Gray panted for breath and yelled something in Spanish.

Outside the room the NCIS agents were joined by a tense, silent Rodge.

Pete returned to the bed, needle and a clear plastic bottle in one hand. He grabbed the IV, running his fingers down the line, and abandoned it a second later. Gray had dislodged it.

Pete loaded the needle anyway and spoke to the man next to him. "Keep him still." 

The wiry man bore down on Gray's shoulder with one hand and on the elbow closest to Pete with the other. Gray went berserk, twisting under the weight of the men holding him, hysteria lifting his body up off the bed.

Pete braced his free hand on Gray's forearm and struck quickly, the plunger depressed and the sharp object withdrawn in less than a second. The men pressing his limbs into the bed seemed to hold their breath. To the agents watching it seemed like a long time, but couldn't have been more than ten seconds before Gray slumped back, limp and unconscious.

The men around him relaxed.

"Cade, help me clean out this cut and stitch it up, will you? Thanks guys." Pete nodded to the others, and they slipped out of the room.

His eyes followed them out, landing on Rodge and the agents standing stiffly outside the door. He stepped into the hallway to speak to them but paused before he did so, looking them over carefully. They'd backed up to lean against the opposite wall, faces stony. All three were still upright, but they looked like hell.

"You guys sure you're okay?"

"We are fine." Ziva nodded toward the infirmary. "How is he?"

"He was hallucinating a minute ago, that was brought on by the fever. I've given him something to bring his temperature down, along with a cocktail of drugs to fight the infection. There's nothing to indicate infection has spread into his bloodstream. He's exhausted and dehydrated and probably lost a significant amount of blood over the past twenty-four hours. The wound itself is deep but otherwise not serious."

He waited for questions, but the four of them just stared. 

"I think we caught it in time," Pete explained. "He should be fine."

And they finally, subtly relaxed. Tony looked Pete over, frowning a little. "Shouldn't we get him to a hospital? A doctor?"

Pete shrugged. "We almost certainly have everything here that we could possibly need to treat him, as well as the advantage of security, which we would lose in a hospital. Besides," he smiled. "I am a doctor."

Tony blinked at the man.

"You should grab showers and a change of clothes," Pete said, turning away. "You're next."

But they stood there and watched Pete and Cade clean Gray up, moving gently over the limp form while Rodge parked himself on the next bed over. Then one of the men who'd helped to carry the stretcher reappeared, carrying towels and soap, fresh t-shirts, clean fatigue pants and socks.

Tony and Gibbs sat at the door of the shower room while Ziva went in. When she emerged they took their turns cleaning up. She returned to the infirmary to sit with Gray. The light in the room had been shut off but the hall light was enough to see by. Rodge was the only one there now, lounging on the next bed over from Gray. He was flipping through a sports magazine, looking at the pictures in the dim light.

Ziva walked forward and put a hand on Gray's forehead. It was a little warmer than it should be, she thought, but not burning or sweaty as it had been earlier. She sat down on a chair next to his bed to wait, shivering in the room's air-conditioning after six days in the humid jungle. She pulled up one of the spare bed's blankets and wrapped it around herself.

Pete came in with Gibbs and Tony a few minutes later, the agents freshly scrubbed and bearing trays of food.

"Status?" Gibbs nodded at Gray. The three of them inhaled soup and sandwiches, watching Pete check over Gray, listening as he informed them that the fever was already down.

When the trays were empty Pete jerked his head at Rodge. The man slid off the bed and sauntered out of the room. Pete turned on the bright overhead light and shut the door.

"Alright. Here's what we need to do," Pete said. "Your people in Washington have been informed of your safe return. They're waiting for a call from you, when you're ready. We have a video link prepped."

They gathered themselves to stand. "Hold up," Pete said firmly. "You're not ready until I say you are. First I'm going to clean each and every cut and scrape you got out there, no matter how minor. That's SOP for this base. Infections here are no joke." He nodded toward Gray to make the point. "Second," Pete folded thick arms across his chest, "we know you were captured by a patrol on your way out and held for several hours."

Ziva and Tony glanced at each other. How exactly did they know that?

"So, before we bandage up all your little boo-boos, I need to know if any of you are hiding more significant injuries." His eyes ran over Tony's bruised face, then Ziva's. "Now is the time to address them."

There was silence for a moment, then Gibbs stood. "Dinozzo, with me." He turned to leave the room.

Ziva raised a hand. Her eyes were still on Gray. "There is no need, Gibbs."

Gibbs looked at her, face neutral. She raised her chin and met his gaze with her own. "Gray came before it went that far."

Pete watched the exchange carefully. "Agent David," he said slowly, "You're likely to be on this base for several more days." The agents looked at him in surprise, and not a little dismay, and he suppressed a smile. "You'll have to ask your superiors about the reasons behind that, I'm just telling you what I've been told. But if you need medical treatment of any kind I need to know now. I won't exam you if you don't want me to. That's your choice. However, if you were sexually assaulted you'll need to begin a course of drugs to protect you from STDs. Immediately."

She shook her head and said again, calmly, "Gray came before it went that far."

Pete nodded. "Okay. What about Gray?"

The question hung in the air, and Ziva stared at the doctor. "What about him?"

"Is the knife wound all of it?"

"He struggled with a guard," Ziva said, thinking back. "He received a blow to the stomach before he was stabbed."

Pete nodded. "I noticed some abdominal bruising. Anything else?" he pressed. "Was he ever alone with them?"

Ziva frowned and shook her head, looking at Gibbs. "Not when he was with us. Gray was on his own in the camp for several hours . . ."

"I didn't see any evidence that he was attacked at the camp," Gibbs said, watching Pete.

Pete nodded again. "Alright, good. How about you guys?"

"Ziva was punched in the face and took a rifle butt to the stomach," Gibbs said promptly. "And she hit her head. On a truck. Dinozzo was punched in the face twice and has lacerations on both wrists. And their feet are a mess."

"How about you?"

Gibbs shrugged. "I'm fine."

He'd hold, anyway, until they were back home and Ducky could patch him up. Duck could be persuaded not to report it, and no report meant no psych eval -

But Ziva wasn't having any of it. "He was beaten with something," she said firmly. "The cuts on his back look infected."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at her. She met his calm stare with her own. Very slowly, he smiled. "I got some mosquito bites," he admitted. "They're a little itchy."

Ziva threw back her head and laughed.

"MOUSs. Mosquitoes of unusual size." Tony grinned and yawned. "Wielding straps or canes of some kind. Can we take a nap before we talk to Washington? I'm definitely feeling a nap."

The truth was his heart was too full to talk to Washington. Almost too full to speak at all. He wanted to crawl into bed and float into unconsciousness, just so that he could wake up tomorrow and check that this wasn't all a dream.

He'd got them back, somehow. They were safe.

"Okay," Pete said, already shuffling through the cupboard for supplies. "Whoever you are you've obviously been to the Ranger school of ignoring injuries. We'll go one at a time." He moved closer to Ziva. "Mind if I look at your head, Agent David?"

"No," she said. "But you should call me Ziva, Pete. I don't even know your last name. Or your rank," she suggested.

He smiled, gently parting her hair and tilting her head toward the light. "Actually, you don't know my first name, either. And I don't have any rank. But Ziva it is."

An hour later they were as patched as Pete could get them. Ziva had been through a battery of tests to check for head injury. Tony had stitches in his wrists. Gibbs was treated last, his back cleaned and stitched and, disgustingly, drained.

Tony and Ziva politely fell asleep on the infirmary beds while Pete worked on Gibbs. Neither of them really wanted to leave Gray.

Gibbs left all three of them to sleep as he followed Pete to a communications room and called home. He spent two minutes on a link with Vance, assuring him that the majority of his major crimes response team was still alive, and more or less intact. They set up a time to talk the following day, after both of them had slept. Then Gibbs was ushered into a dark room with a bed.

He collapsed, clean, fed, and safe for the first time in weeks, and let oblivion come.

* * *

_a/n: MOUSs (Mosquitoes of Unusual Size) are of course a reference to ROUSs, Rodents of Unusual Size, which of course were responsible for oh-my-dear Wesley's shoulder injury in 'The Princess Bride.'_

 


	25. Poker

Gibbs woke eight beautiful hours later and stumbled to the restroom. He admired the reintroduction of running water to his life and headed to the infirmary to check on his people. Tony and Ziva were right where he left them, sleeping peacefully.

Gray's bed was empty. Clear tubes leading up to two IVs were tangled in the sheets.

Gibbs frowned and set off to find him. The kid couldn't be well enough to be up and wandering around.

The base seemed to be a logistics and planning hub. There weren't many people around, but the ones he did see were busy, a mix of Americans and Colombians stuffed into bare bones conference rooms, frowning over maps and laptops. No one looked at him or asked where he was going. No one wore identifying uniforms or security badges as far as he could tell.

He found Pete and Rodge in a breezy open hanger, sitting with two other men at a table just out of the sun. They were playing cards, a pile of bills and coins collected in the middle of the table, and drinking beer.

It was just after noon.

"Busy day?"

Pete glanced up at him. "Guys in the communications room will set up the link to DC for you. Just ask."

Gibbs didn't say anything. He stood there, looking over the cards on the table and the cooler of beer, squinting into the sunny day.

"What do you want?" That was Rodge.

"Where's Gray?" 

Pete's eyebrows went up as he studied his hand. "He left."

Gibbs frowned. "Left?" he said sharply.

Pete laid down two cards and picked another two up off the pile. "He'll be back in time to catch a ride with you to DC."

Gibbs stared at the medic – doctor – whatever. "He was okay to leave?"

"Better than he was last night," Rodge growled.

"You'll have to excuse Rodge," Pete drawled. "He gets grumpy when Gray has a tummy ache. It's very mother hen but he can't help himself. Gets it from his Jewish nana."

"You shut up about my nana. Trip kings." Rodge threw his cards down on the table. "What've you got?"

Pete slid his hand under the pile, face down.

Rodge smiled hugely. "How you managed to get _worse_ at poker I do not know." He glanced up at Gibbs. "Either pull up a chair and grab a beer or go away," he said. "You're standing in my sun. And your stress is infecting my vacation."

Gibbs pulled up a chair and fished a beer out of the cooler. "This is vacation?"

"It is now," Rodge said. "One more hand, gentlemen? I'm almost to that flat screen." Rodge began shuffling, but Pete snatched the deck back.

"Give me those. You cheat like a whore." Pete snorted at Rodge's wounded look.

The other two men sat quietly, smiling patiently. They were both ripped, had an Abby worthy number of tattoos, and looked pleasantly drunk. Gibbs turned his attention to Rodge and Pete.

"Where did he go?"

The men exchanged glances. "Gibbs," Pete said, dealing the cards. "I can already tell you're not very good at vacation."

Gibbs grinned. Mike Franks told him that pretty much every day, back in Mexico. "Guess not," he said, taking a pull of his beer. It was fantastic. Fantastic to be drinking beer. Sitting on a chair, feeling the breeze. Fantastic to be alive. To be free.

It was almost a challenge to hold on to his anger at Dinozzo and David. Almost.

"Where Gray goes is Gray's business," Rodge said distractedly. Gibbs watched him work a card from the pocket of his pants into his sleeve.

Pete nodded. "And he'll be fine. Don't suppose you play poker, Gibbs? I might be willing to exchange some information for a 65 inch flat screen."

Gibbs studied his beer. Dinozzo had called these men Gray's friends. Said they cared for him.

Tony didn't misread people. Not often anyway.

"I owe him. Just want to be sure he's alright," Gibbs said evenly.

"Oh, don't you worry about that," Rodge smiled. "If you owe him, Gray will collect."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes and Pete chuckled. "Now he's nervous. Don't be nervous, Gibbs." He held out his arms in some sort of triumphant gesture. "I mean, look at us. We survived."

All four of the men laughed hysterically.

At that moment the door on the other side of the hangar swept open and Dinozzo walked up, bending down to speak in Gibbs' ear. "Boss, got the director on the line in there."

Gibbs left the men to their game.

**x**

"Agent Gibbs, glad to see you're alright. Hope I didn't wake you." Vance sure didn't sound like he cared whether he'd woken Gibbs up or not.

"Director."

Vance smiled. Gibbs was as irritable and, it seemed, indestructible as ever. It was good to see. "Dinozzo and David okay?"

"Yep."

Vance nodded and raised his eyebrows. "Kort spoke to Gray earlier this morning. I understand you ran into some trouble on your way out of there."

Gibbs shifted in his seat. "You could say that." He paused and scratched his neck. "We owe the kid our lives, Leon. Guess I owe him twice."

Vance nodded. "Not something Kort is going to let you forget, believe me. I'm glad you and your team are alright. But I don't like how deeply the CIA's got you in its pocket right now."

Gibbs nodded. He couldn't agree more.

Vance studied his agent through the grainy feed. "I don't suppose you know why they stepped in to save your ass."

"Nope," Gibbs shook his head. "Though I really hope it doesn't involve being a mole in some Mexican prison."

Vance grinned in that way that reminded Gibbs of a wolf. "Well, I should let your lawyer tell you this. But I don't think you need to worry about Mexico. Not its prisons, anyway."

"Yeah? How's that?"

"The task force was able to tie your kidnapping to the Reynosa cartel, the same organization that provided the new evidence against you in the first place. Hart seems to think she can get it discounted by a grand jury now, arguing it was all a plant to get you down there."

Gibbs eyed Vance. The evidence against him was _overwhelming_.

"And that's going to exonerate me?"

"Hart seems to think so." Vance shrugged, face blank. "Now that it's clear this was all a ploy to attack an NCIS agent I had our legal team look into it as well. They agree."

Gibbs shook his head, feeling a little lightheaded. Mexico had been there, in the background . . . forever. And now it didn't matter? 

He'd worked in law enforcement too long to really be surprised by anything a team of lawyers cooked up - they could twist the truth like a pipe cleaner. He turned his attention to something that did matter.

"When are we getting out of here, Leon?"

Vance looked down, reading notes on his desk. "Kort's arranged military transports back to DC for you. You're scheduled to leave the base you're currently at in three days."

Gibbs blinked. "Three days? What the hell?"

Vance held up a hand. "I don't suppose you're aware that your team dosed Gray with an isotope to enable . . . some kind of radioactive tracking?"

Gibbs stared at him.

Vance nodded. "Kid refused a GPS locator and this was your team's solution. _Your_ locators can only be tracked by observers who have the PINs. The isotope isn't that discreet. Anyone monitoring Calera land for unusual signals could pick it up and follow it. Unlikely, but not totally out of the realm of possibility. It takes about eight days to be completely eliminated from the system."

Gibbs considered that. "Kort thinks they'd hunt Gray all the way to DC?"

"He does."

"And we're staying here with him, why? As punishment?"

"The official reason is your debriefing by the CIA. They want all of you in isolation until you're debriefed, and isolation is where you are now, essentially. There's also probably some punishment in there. Kort wasn't too pleased that we tracked his asset."

Vance and Gibbs looked at each other for a moment. "You think the cartel's already after Gray?" Gibbs asked. The kid definitely knew more about the Caleras than was healthy.

"No idea. You know more about him than I do. I'm pretty sure that two cartels are going to be after you now, though, once they figure out you're alive."

"Yeah," Gibbs sighed.

"Get some rest while you're down there. You're going to need it. I'll see you in few days, Gibbs."

Gibbs couldn't see Vance's arms in the screen, but his shoulders moved, as if he was signaling. Half a second second later a black blur knocked the grinning director out of the camera view.

"Gibbs Gibbs!"

Gibbs smiled for real. "Hey Abs."

**x**

" _Three days?_ "

"Apparently the kid is leaking some . . ." Gibbs waved his fork and frowned. "Radioactive signal thing. And will be for three more days."

"Oh," Dinozzo winced. "Crap."

Gibbs helped himself to more of the spicy beef stew from the communal pot in the middle of the table. It was dinner time and whoever cooked for this base knew what they were doing.

"So . . ." Ziva ventured. "Kort knows about that."

"Gutsy," Gibbs eyed them, "or stupid, to light up Kort's pet like that."

"It was for his own safety," Ziva said firmly.

Gibbs swallowed what he wanted to say about the kid's safety. Now wasn't the time. "Yeah. Well, if we leave while he still glows in the dark the cartel could follow his movements in Colombia and figure out the flights. Maybe track him back to wherever he lives."

"Abby said that was unlikely. _Extremely_ unlikely," Dinozzo protested.

Gibbs shrugged. "CIA's not going to risk it, and they want us together until we're debriefed. So . . ."

"Three days," Dinozzo said glumly.

Gibbs wasn't really feeling very charitable. Tony was damned lucky to be alive. "Cheer up, Dinozzo. Vance has McGee setting up a secure online archive of files for us. There'll be plenty to keep you entertained."

The two of them looked at him warily. Smart agents.

"Files?" Ziva ventured.

"Case files. Any activity in the DC area connected to the Calera cartel. They're active all over the states, but we might as well start local."

Tony considered him carefully. Ziva was the one who said it. "You think they'll come after you. In DC."

"Not sure," Gibbs allowed.

"But you're going after them anyway." Tony sighed, resigned to it. His job was to pull Gibbs out of the fire, and he'd won this round. But he couldn't really stop the boss from running right back in. Never had yet, anyway.

Gibbs shrugged and scraped his plate clean.

He walked a complete circuit of the base before turning in for the night. Gray hadn't returned.

**x**

The next morning, Pete checked Tony and Gibbs' stitches and arranged an empty conference room for them, complete with three secure laptops and a huge carafe of coffee. They hunkered down and started reading.

"This is unbelievable," Ziva hissed. "How have they gotten away with it?"

The number of murders linked back to Calera activity had climbed sharply in the last decade. But no one high-up in the cartel had been touched by law enforcement.

"Kort said that the US and Colombia rely on Calera support in the Colombian civil war. As long as that continues . . ." Tony trailed off.

"No one is going to prosecute any of the real players in the drug business, not if they're supporting the war effort." She scoffed, offended by the corruption staring them in the face.

"Which is why the US didn't bother with the strictly legal approach the last time we took the Caleras down." Tony kept a careful eye on Gibbs' reaction.

The boss ignored him.

"Kort said the CIA wants Gibbs for his information, but that does not make sense." Ziva picked up where he'd left off. 

"A lot of law enforcement has lost lives to this cartel," Tony agreed. "Why save Gibbs? Why now?"

They were looking at Gibbs as if he already knew the answers.

"The Caleras clearly have a personal vendetta against Gibbs," Ziva said slowly. "Revealed by the ballistics on the Hernandez case. It is likely they will come after him."

Gibbs nodded, eyes still on whatever he was reading on the screen. "That's got to be part of it. These dirtbags are politically covered for their day-to-day operations in Colombia. But revenge against an American agent is something else. Kort's seen a way of bypassing the chain of command to get to them."

"Huh. No need to get any kills approved," Tony said. "If Gibbs can connect attacks on him back to specific players in the Calera organization, action against those members of the cartel would be self-defense. Within our jurisdiction."

Particularly if the team set it up that way.

"Sneaky," Dinozzo concluded. And dangerous. If the Caleras really attacked Gibbs first . . . the boss was right. In this case the best defense may be to have such a good offense they never even put the defense into play.

"No one has been able to trace hit men hired by the Caleras back to the top of the organization," Ziva observed. "Or to identify most of the killers. Not even for the high-profile political assassinations carried out in Colombia."

Gibbs continued to click through the file in front of him. "Not yet."

Ziva and Tony exchanged a glance and returned to their own files. Looking for connections.

Half an hour later Gibbs sat back to rest his eyes, ignoring the odd pull and prick of the stitches in his back. His agents were busy, bent over their computers. He glanced from the top of Ziva's head to Dinozzo's before letting his gaze wander the windowless room.

He doubted they would find anything in these files, but they needed to exhaust old-fashioned investigative digging first. It was what usually worked in these kinds of murders, and life would be so much simpler if it worked in the Calera cases too. Usually hit men were found by a money trail - from the assassin to whoever ordered and paid for the hit. Neat. Easy. Convenient for law enforcement.

But he wasn't sure there would be a money trail in these cases.

The kid's first kill in that clearing had been the knife, thrown at a run. Gibbs played it back in his mind again, for the thousandth time. A perfect hit, straight into the heart. If the kill hadn't been instant the alarm would have been raised But it was instant.

Gray managed to take out the second man almost without raising an alarm. In hand-to-hand fighting with an opponent twice his size. It was gruesome, but Gray had not hesitated. Then he was wounded and exposed, without the luxury of time to free his allies. Still he'd been able to think. To arm himself, run to cover, avoid fire, return it. Two precision shots in rapid succession, at night with a stranger's rifle. Two perfect hits. Instant kills. He'd hunted the remaining two, located and executed them. And with accuracy, since only one round had been required for each.

Then the confusion with Tony. A hair trigger temper, vacant eyes and a steady hand. Gibbs had seen that before, in other men. Gray had gone somewhere else for those few seconds, been sucked into some other nightmare.

 _What's one more_ , he'd said.

Tony had nearly died in that moment, Gibbs had no doubt.

What Gibbs had seen in Gray in that clearing wasn't luck, or determination, or even inherent skill. There was talent there, sure, if it could be called that. But there was also a lot of training. Experience. And the logic of warlords all over the world. 

Why hire hit men when you can raise them instead?

Gibbs stretched and went back to his files. They would exhaust other options first.

**x**

Gray reappeared that night. After dinner Gibbs and the others spotted him playing cards with the vacation crew in the hangar. Gibbs paused on his way by to watch them, then headed to bed.

The next morning the agents gathered at 0730 for breakfast and found Gray sitting on his own in the mess. Gibbs put his plate and coffee down across from him. "Mind if I sit?"

Gray paused mid-chew and shook his head. They were quiet until Tony and Ziva got through the chow line and joined them. The agents ran their eyes over Gray. The fever looked to be gone. He seemed comfortable, no obvious pain.

"How are you feeling, Gray?" Ziva asked.

"Fine."

"Haven't seen you around," Gibbs said.

Gray reached for a bottle marked _caliente_ in bold letters and dumped about half of its contents onto his eggs.

"I miss the fever already," Tony said, watching with concern. "You're much more . . . talkative . . . . you sure you want all that . . . ?"

Gray chewed a mouthful of red eggs.

"Right. Well, like I was saying - " Tony peeled a banana and stuffed half of it into his mouth, talking comically around the food. "You're much more informative when you're delirious."

Gray glanced at Tony. "I am?"

Gibbs scratched his chin to hide a smile.

"Don't tell us you forgot?" Tony grinned, but his eyes were sharp. "Got your life's ambitions out there, Smokey. All your hopes and dreams. Recess. Dodgeball. Kickball . . . "

They watched the kid innocently shovel eggs into his mouth, enough hot sauce on top to set the building on fire.

Tony narrowed his eyes as the silence stretched out tellingly. "Well, I thought we had a nice little heart-to-heart."

Gray's eggs were gone. He set down his fork and drained the milky coffee sitting in front of him. "If I was delirious then I wouldn't know, would I?"

Tony and Ziva paused, forks mid-air, to look at him.

"We're flying out tonight, Gray. Helo leaves at 2100," Gibbs said.

Gray nodded, picked up his empty plate, and walked away.

Tony snorted and went back to his breakfast. "Whatever. That fever was real. And he told us about the files . . ."

But only because he'd chosen to tell them, Tony realized. When the kid was really delirious, he'd screamed his head off. In Spanish.

Gibbs sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "Yep. Told us just enough to sniff around for information about Ziva."

"You think he was punching us for information?" Ziva frowned. "He did not seem insincere when he spoke about his future."

Gibbs tilted his mug and peered into it. Colombian coffee in Colombia really was fantastic. Actually, breakfast all around was fantastic. Just as a concept, in life. "Maybe," Gibbs said. "For the distant future. He was aware enough to avoid anything relevant." He decided to probe. "About himself, at least."

"That he had access to some level of your personnel files means that Kort trusts him." She skipped over the fact that Kort didn't seem to trust him with _her_ file. "It does not tell us anything about Gray," she nodded. Agreeing with Gibbs. Ignoring the probe. "He did not give anything significant about himself away."

"Doesn't matter whether he was faking the talkative part or not. We didn't tell him anything either." Tony shrugged it off.

Gibbs caught Ziva's shuttered gaze and looked at her steadily. Because Dinozzo was wrong. Exactly one thing would be fairly obvious to Gray after the conversation they'd had in front of the kid.

Her NCIS teammates didn't know much about Ziva's background. They knew less, at least, than Kort.

"Nope." Gibbs finished his coffee and got up to get some more. "Nobody said a word."


	26. Block Party

After breakfast they asked one of the communications guys for a set of extension cords and moved their laptops to a corner of the hangar. It smelled like motor oil, but it was breezy and shady and way more pleasant than the sterile conference room. It was also where the guys on break seemed to gather.

Gray appeared after lunch with Rodge and Pete, the pilot carrying a basketball under his arm. The men stripped off their shirts and began to battle it out under a battered hoop. Tony talked his way into the game and Ziva wandered over to sit next to Gray, assessing the various physiques in a voice just loud enough for the men to hear. They flexed their pecs a bit more than was strictly necessary in a game of basketball.

Except for the military equipment everywhere, and the unrelenting keen of jungle insects, it could have been a scene from any ordinary, muggy day in a DC park.

Rodge invited Ziva to play and Gibbs was about to intervene when Pete did it for him. The doctor felt the knot on her head the day before and was surprised she was up and moving around, much less playing basketball, and said so.

Gibbs finally closed out the file he was reading when he heard Ziva laugh in response to something Gray said. Just beyond them, Tony was keeping up despite the impressive fitness of the other guys and the fatigue Gibbs' team was still feeling.

Then again, his senior agent's competitive streak didn't always leave room for common sense. "Pop those stitches and I'll staple you back up myself, Dinozzo," Gibbs called.

Tony took his eyes off the ball to glance over at him, face haggard but happy. "Sure thing, Boss." He grinned, sweaty face radiating fun, and threw himself back into the game.

If Gibbs didn't know better it would be easy to believe his second was totally untouched by it all. 

But he did know better.

A grizzled man walked through the hangar door and watched the game for a minute before coming to stand next to Gibbs. "Like a tour, Gunny?"

Gibbs looked him over and the man returned his stare, face blank. "Somebody in Washington seems to think you should have one."

Gibbs nodded, filing that away. "Lead the way."

Most of the "tour" was spent in the CO's tiny office, going over the base's capabilities. Surveillance, communications, transport, range of operations, general equipment and weaponry. Seemed Kort wanted him to know what was available here.

Less than an hour in, Gray knocked on the door. Gibbs watched the CO stand and step out into the hall with him. They spoke quietly for a minute and Gray walked off. The officer returned to his desk.

"I think that covers it." The man smiled faintly. "You might want to rejoin your people in the hangar." 

By the time Gibbs made it out the door the base commander was already on the phone again, haggling over supplies.

In the hangar the basketball teams were propped against a wall, chugging fluids, arguing college hoops. Gray sat among them, quiet as always. 

Gibbs considered putting it off. But the kid was prone to disappearing - no telling when he'd have another chance. So he walked over and stood in front of him, blocking his view. "Need to talk to you. Got a minute?"

The kid just sat there, looking up at him. Waiting for him to talk, Gibbs guessed.

"Take a walk with me," the agent said firmly.

Gray picked up the water bottle at his side and climbed to his feet. Gibbs followed as the boy made his way past the hulking men sitting next to him, along the wall of the building and the lip of shade it provided. At the corner he turned to follow the perpendicular wall, and when the voices behind them had faded, stopped and turned back to Gibbs. Gray leaned casually against the corrugated siding. It was obvious he was too tired to want to walk much of anywhere.

Gibbs didn't bother to disguise a blatant sweep. The wound to Gray's abdomen must still be bothering him, along with the lingering effects of fever and fatigue. Other than that he looked alright - though his long-sleeve shirt was too hot for summer on the equator, and there was no need for it here on the base, no jungle tearing at him . . .

Whatever, Gibbs was fairly sure he didn't want to know what that was about.

It was shady here at least, now the sun was past its zenith, and quiet, nobody working or passing time on this side of the building. "Sit." He waved a hand at the warm asphalt and slid down himself, ignoring the pull of the strained muscles in his legs. Gray followed, settling just out of arm's reach. His eyes rested on the wire, the bright field and the wilderness beyond.

Gibbs didn't say anything for a minute. He relaxed, studying the tangle of trees past the fence and the kid beside him, wondering what Gray was looking for out there.

"What do you want?" Gray said.

The agent looked away, out toward the wire again. "Wanted to thank you for coming back for my team," he said simply, "when we were taken by that patrol. For one thing."

Gray slouched against the building and stared off into the distance. Waiting for Gibbs to get to the point.

"Though I'm not sure why you did," he added mildly.

Silence. But Gibbs had nowhere to be. He could wait all day.

"That it?" Gray asked.

"No." He let his eyes drift from the wire to the boy's face again. "I want to know why you came for me in the first place."

Gray sipped from his water bottle. "But not to thank me for it?" Ironic, and slippery as an eel.

"Can't say I'm not glad to be out of that camp," Gibbs said honestly, letting the dodge go. "But you were sent into a dangerous situation to do it and that wasn't right. You shouldn't have been there."

Not this time, Gibbs thought. Not for me. And not before either, when you were made into this.

Silence. And a low, "No one should be there."

Gibbs' eyebrows crept up, surprised Gray volunteered that. "No kids should be in a place like that," Gibbs observed, matter-of-fact. "No civilians. But law enforcement should be there. Need to be, if they're going to shut it down."

"Yeah." That was a _whatever, old man_. "That it?" And that was just bored.

Well, fair enough. Maybe shutting it all down was a fantasy, Gibbs thought tiredly. Given what he knew of Londono's influence in the area it was possible local law enforcement was running that damn camp.

"No. One other thing." Gibbs scratched his forehead, trying to figure a way in, past the kid's defenses.

Because it was Gibbs' mess now, his responsibility. No matter Gray's opaque motivations, the shadow maneuvering of the CIA or the desperate, half-insane mission of his own team. All that was irrelevant in the end, because it was impossible to deny that Gray had gone in after _him_. To get Gibbs out. And then he'd come back for them. 

He'd decided to spare Ziva, or die trying. God knows why, but when he'd stepped into that fight the kid risked everything. For them. Not even to save their lives - it was all too obvious how easily the kid could have freed the team if he'd waited for the advantage. He'd stepped in when he did and risked everything simply to keep them whole, to protect them. He'd saved them alright, Tony and Ziva, in a way that a kid shouldn't even understand.

Now they were all safe, supposedly.

Trouble was, Gibbs didn't buy Gray's odd, cold calm. Not any more than he bought the act Dinozzo was constantly selling, or the glass smooth veneer to Ziva's eyes.

Gibbs clasped his hands firmly over his knees and turned enough to see Gray's face. "You used tranquilizers on my guards at the camp. That your idea?"

A shrug. But it had to be either the kid's or Kort's. It was unusual to say the least.

"Because you didn't want to use deadly force?"

Gray was utterly still. And then Gibbs got a nod, so slight it might have been an indrawn breath.

"You had to kill when you came back for us," Gibbs said bluntly, and paused for a reaction. When there was none he plowed on. "You shouldn't have been put in that position." He drew in a quiet breath, released it slowly. Gibbs knew what he was about to do wasn't really a sign of weakness, but it disgusted him all the same. The words felt pale and meaningless, even as he said them. "I'm sorry that you were."

He watched Gray's face, but there was nothing there. Not the protests of a child. Not the reassurances of a man. Just – nothing.

Gibbs looked away again, out into the jungle. Following the kid's stare, searching for the words that might traverse the gulf between them - young and old, guerilla and soldier - outsider and the law itself.

But Gibbs hadn't always been the law. "Le duele, yo sé," he said finally. "You can talk to me, if you want. Anytime."

Gray said nothing, the quiet around them broken only by the insects and the faint, raucous voices of the men teasing each other on the other side of the building.

"That's it," he said finally.

Gray got up then, silent as the sniper he was trained to be, and walked away.

Gibbs followed a few minutes later, back to the hanger and the laptop he'd borrowed that morning. He tuned out the basketball rematch and resumed clicking through the files McGee sent to them.

He was going to bring these bastards down.

**x**

It was mid-afternoon when Gray stood and made his way to the closest gate. Behind him the Final Four argument trailed away.

The Rangers and agents watched Gray stop at the guard platform and speak to the men on duty there, the voices too far away to hear. Tony and Ziva got to their feet and shaded their eyes against the sun when the boy stepped out of the gate and began walking toward the trees.

"What is he doing?" Ziva asked, tense and confused. The men didn't answer, but they were relaxed, sipping calmly from water bottles as they watched Gray recede into the distance.

When Gray was almost to the trees a figure rose up out of the grass at his feet.

The two stood together for a moment, then turned and began walking back toward the gate. The figure at Gray's side waved a hand forward, and behind them a line of boys stepped out of the trees, black silhouettes of rifles over their shoulders.

They piled their weapons at the inside of the gate, and then the men who had watched them approach stood and walked forward, greeting Gray and the boys with him in patchy Spanish. The newcomers were lean, dressed in a baggy mix of the same fatigues the Calera guards wore and civilian clothing. None of them looked much older than Gray, and some looked a whole lot younger.

A cooler full of sodas, a soccer ball, and four orange traffic cones appeared. The kids stripped down to t-shirts and began kicking the ball around, chattering and laughing and dribbling circles around the men from the base. Gray sat next to the cooler with a couple of the older boys, talking and drinking beer.

The NCIS agents drifted over to Pete, who stood watching the game on the sidelines.

Pete glanced at Tony. "Stitches still there?"

"Yeah," Tony said, and waved a hand at the surreal melee around them, Apocalypse Now meets Sesame Street. "What's going on?"

"Block party," Pete said, as if it was obvious. "Come on and help me pull out the grill. It's a two man job." The doctor walked off toward the hangar door. Tony followed.

Gibbs and Ziva watched the match until one of the kids ran up, breathless, and asked Ziva in staccato Spanish if she wanted to play. The two agents looked the teen over and reassessed. She had braids pulled up under her cap. And, Gibbs realized with a pang, the beginnings of a girl's figure under the baggy shirt.

Ziva was warned against head shots and released into the game. Half-an-hour later Gibbs was flipping burgers on the grill and turning corn still in the husk, talking gang activity in DC with an oddly well-informed Rodge.

**x**

The kids stayed until sunset, shrieking and laughing and playing a damn rough game of soccer, leaving smudges of blood and skin on the tarmac. When the light began to fade the men gathered the cones and put them away and the kids became quiet again, sitting cross-legged on the cement together.

When the last of the sun dipped below the horizon the NCIS agents ducked back inside to grab their personal gear, reappearing in the hangar moments later. More than ready to go.

The agents nodded goodbye to the anonymous men stationed at the base, sincerely wishing them well, and waved farewell to the tough knot of kids they'd spent the afternoon with. When it was just dark, Rodge and Pete settled into the cockpit of the Black Hawk, pilot lights blinking on and the blades beginning to move a minute later.

The kids sitting on the tarmac climbed to their feet and the agents watched, curious, as Gray stood aside from them, black backpack at his feet, while the dark huddle closed in around someone else. Ziva's eyes strained to pick out whoever was in the center of the mix, but it was impossible to see. Perhaps one of the men at the base? But the children hadn't seemed particularly close to one of the Rangers over the others . . .

A moment later the group parted and a small figure stepped out of the huddle to stand by Gray. The agents followed the dark outlines of the two boys with their eyes as they climbed into the helicopter together, Gray pulling the smaller one up after him. The rest of the kids watched them disappear into the chopper's belly. Then they turned and walked away, toward the gate where they had entered, where their weapons were piled. They picked them up as they passed, the last one slinging the extra over his shoulder, and melted once more into the wilderness outside the wire.

From the copilots' seat Pete waved a let's go hand at the agents. They climbed into the chopper to sit across from Gray and a boy with dark floppy hair and careful eyes. He couldn't have been more than ten.

Gibbs shot Tony and Ziva a look, the same one they'd gotten a thousand times before across the bullpen. The  _who/what/why?_

They smiled a little even as they shook their heads. The unfortunate _no clue, Boss_.

**x**

They weren't changing to a plane in one of the villages this time. They flew all the way to the base outside Bogota in the Black Hawk. When the team spilled out onto the runway it was after 0200 and Tony was pretty sure the hearing loss was going to be permanent. Even when the rotors shut down and fell silent he could still feel the shake of the helicopter's engine in his bones, and was sure he would for weeks.

Rodge and Pete checked in with the base tower and got the location of the cargo plane the NCIS agents would be riding back to DC. It was leaving in half an hour. The Rangers walked with Gray and the other boy to the runway, the agents following behind. The aircraft was already there and ready for them to board, but Gray stood outside, listening as his Ranger buddies joked about what they had planned next for "vacation," the younger boy silent and close to his side.

Gibbs stretched contentedly. The night air was cool and quiet and felt good after a day spent playing in the sun, followed by bone-jarring hours in a helo. His agents stood with him, a little ways from the plane, lazily debating . . . well, something. Gibbs wasn't exactly sure what.

"My car," Tony said rapturously.

"My shower," Ziva responded.

"Too vague. Besides, you always say that." Dinozzo again. Unimpressed. "And there's nothing special about it," he leered. "I checked."

Ziva rolled her eyes. "So? You always say your car, which is equally vague and lacking in any special qualities."

"Blasphemy. There is nothing vague about my car. It's a precision machine. And I miss it."

"As I miss my shower. It has the perfect pressure. And the hot water setting is exactly the right amount of hot."

They were quiet then, but only for a moment. The rest of their conversation was devoted to the individual virtues of their showers.

Sometimes it was hard for Gibbs to believe the two of them weren't dating. He contributed that his shower's best feature was its proximity to his own bed. And of course, he added pointedly, the peace and quiet.

When the crew gave the final nod, Gibbs stepped purposefully toward Pete. "Thanks for the ride." He didn't bother using his name. 'Pete' already told them pretty plainly that if anything, it wasn't Pete.

The man smiled. "From what I hear you earned it. Get someone to look at your back when you're in DC. It'll need to be checked for infection."

Gibbs held out his hand, and Pete's came out to grip it, his eyes resting heavy on Gibbs' for a moment. "Sua Sponte, Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs grinned. The Ranger Motto . . . "Of their own accord."

"Damn straight. I mean look at me – I'm on vacation!" Gibbs' gut tingled as Pete turned away to shake hands with Dinozzo and Ziva.

Rodge stood to the side, looking grumpy as usual. Gibbs came to stand in front of him, not sure if the tempermental pilot would actually take his hand.

Cranky or not the man had literally lifted his ass out of the weeds, so Gibbs put his hand out. "Thank you. For the ride."

Rodge tore his gaze away from Gray to look Gibbs up and down. "Been assured you're worth it," he said. He took Gibbs' hand in his own firmly, leaning in a little. "You owe him." He tilted his head toward Gray without moving his eyes from Gibbs'.

"I know."

Rodge just stared at him.

"Sua Sponte," Gibbs said solemnly.

"Yeah. Well, we'll see."

Rodge was still holding onto him. He hesitated, but finally leaned even closer to the agent and dropped his voice, glancing pointedly at Gray. "You should know . . . uh . . . Look. He's not . . . he's not always . . . "

Gibbs cocked an eyebrow. He was ready to bet that Rodge's nana was more articulate about the whole mother hen thing.

Rodge caught the smirk and scowled. "Keep him out of anything too dangerous. Or stupid." He eyed Gibbs fiercely for a moment. Whether he found what he was looking for or not Rodge sighed, scratched his massive bald head, and finally leaned back out of Gibbs' space, adding a gruff, "If you can."

Gibbs crossed his arms over his chest. "Anything too dangerous. Or stupid. You mean like sneaking into a drug lord's jungle hideout and picking fights with a mercenary army? All for some old geezer he's never even met?"

"Yeah." Rodge turned dark eyes back to Gibbs. "Keep him out of shit like that." He walked up to Gray and took him by the shoulders in a loose, macho hug. Then he turned to the nameless boy beside Gray, sticking out an enormous hand. Gibbs stared as the smaller boy reached up and shook it. Saying goodbye.

Pete did the same, ruffling the younger one's hair, saying what looked like "good luck" before stepping back and watching both kids walk up the ramp and into the hold.

Tony could feel his neck extending forward in surprise. "He . . . what? He's not with you?" Dinozzo looked back at Rodge and Pete. The two men laughed and waved and turned away, walking toward the Black Hawk, disappearing into the night.

"It looks like our return party has grown," Ziva murmured, and climbed up the ramp after the boys.

They had a few minutes before the plane's engines began to rev and of course Dinozzo took the time to investigate. He clambered through the interior to where Gray and . . . well, who knew? were strapping themselves in. Gibbs and Ziva headed to the opposite side of the hold and pretended not to be listening too hard.

"Hey, Gray. Looks like you're carrying some extra baggage this time around. What's your name, buddy?"

Gray adjusted the buckle over his waist and turned to secure his bag in the netting beside him. He replied, surprisingly. "Don't call my buddy baggage, Agent Dinozzo."

The boy at Gray's side looked at Tony with big, chocolate brown eyes and said nothing.

"Huh. You're just as talkative as Gray here, aren't you. Well, I can dig that. My name's Anthony Dinozzo. Mi nombre es Anthony Dinozzo. You going to Washington with us?"

The kid looked from Tony to Gray. Finally adjusted into his own seat, and finished checking over the younger boy's straps, Gray sat back and gave the kid a little nod, toward Tony, like a _go on_.

The boy turned to Tony and calmly said, "No strangers. I do not talk." The accent was pretty thick, but the words were deliberate and clear.

"Well," Tony smiled hugely, "good for you! That is smart. But you see, I'm not a stranger. I'm a federal agent." Tony swung his backpack forward and rummaged through one of the pockets, speaking slowly for the benefit of those new to the language. "That's like a cop. A police officer. See, here's my badge." He pulled his badge out of his bag and flipped it open, holding it forward for the kid to see. "So you can talk to me."

The boy glanced back at Gray again. Gray raised his eyebrows, another _go on_. Tony wasn't anticipating cooperation from that corner, but he wasn't about to question it, either.

The boy sat forward in his seat, leaning against the straps to look closely at the badge and the picture on the ID card. Anticipation built as he evaluated first the badge, then the agent.

And said, serenely, "My guardian is not here."

Behind him, Tony heard Ziva laugh.

"Uh huh." Tony flipped the badge closed and glanced at Gray, who was squinting out past them both, looking at the runway. The faintest of grins tugged at Gray's mouth. "And who exactly is your guardian? I would love to talk to her." He looked deliberately at Gray. "Or him."

The kid frowned a little, squeezing the strap at his waist in his hands. His face got red, like he was thinking hard enough to emit steam. Finally, tentatively, he said, "No more? Questions?"

Gray, not taking his eyes off of the runway, leaned in toward the boy and whispered in his ear. The kid turned to face him, listening intently, then nodded and turned back to Tony. He smiled a little shyly. "Try again?"

Tony gamely asked again. "Who is your guardian? And what's your name?"

The kid smiled for real this time. He was excited to answer, no doubt. "No more questions with no lawyer!"

Ziva's laughter peeled out, echoing around the metal cavern of the aircraft.

"Oh my god," Tony mumbled. "Okay. Good talking to you, kid with no name. Enjoy your flight."

He walked across the plane to sit next to Ziva. In the few minutes remaining before the engines drowned out all conversation they watched Gray teach the kid a variety of high-fives, as well as new vocabulary including "right on" and "awesome."

Even Gibbs stared as both of the boys dropped off to sleep within twenty minutes of take-off.

Then, of course, the boss dropped off too.

Ziva was next. It took a little longer but Tony, eventually, closed his eyes. He'd been sleeping like a rock since they were lifted out of Calera land, his body still tired, recovering from the abuse. When he opened his eyes again one of the crew was yelling into the hold. Twenty minutes to Pax River.

Tony stretched and straightened and smiled, bouncing his knees a little, looking forward to the return. Back to America. Land that he knew.

Gibbs was still pissed, Tony was all too aware of that. And the fight with the Caleras might not be over. Probably wasn't. But Tony could handle a pissed-off Gibbs. He was pretty sure. As for the fight with the cartel, it would be on his terms from here on out. With rules he knew, in a place he understood.

Good war flicks have that triumphant return scene. Through the castle gates, across the home fields, down a gangplank – whatever the era calls for. There'd be a swell of music, adoring women. A swaggery walk from the heroes.

There wasn't any swell of music, and the only beautiful woman in sight was Ziva, who wasn't so much adoring as joining in the swagger, a victorious comrade-in-arms. But, beyond the music and the babes, that stroll down the gangplank with Gibbs at their backs was pretty good. The sun was just up, catching the whole world in its warm yellow glow. The air was the swampy, jet fuel brew of a DC runway in summer.

Damn if they hadn't got the boss out and brought him back. Tony felt ten feet tall.

They were escorted to a tiny customs counter by one of the flight crew. Gray pulled shiny new American passports out for himself and his sidekick. Everyone learned from the gratifyingly loud interviewing officer that mini-Gray's first name, at least, was Mateo.

Kort was waiting for them just past the gate. He was lounging in a plastic airport chair, impeccable as always in a pale gray suit. Six big guys in generic black agency suits sat with him.

When he spotted them, Kort stood without a word to lead Gray and Mateo through the lobby area, then out the doors on the opposite side of the building. The men in suits surrounded the kids and the NCIS agents and herded them all the same way, crossing the exposed space as fast as possible. Two black SUVs idled just beyond the entrance. Gray, Mateo and Kort got into the first car, followed by three of the hulking guards, suit jackets straining over weapons as they bent to stuff themselves into the vehicle. The NCIS agents were ushered into the second car, followed by their own set of guards. The drivers peeled away from the curb and a few seconds later they were leaving the lot, wrapped in the smooth, cool quiet of a top-of-the line SUV.

The silence stretched, surreal. Was no one going to say anything, ever? 

Tony turned to one of the anonymous men who made up their escort. "So. Since we're skipping the introductions, would you mind just cutting to the chase and telling us where we're headed? Cause wherever it is I could use a stop at IHOP on the way, to be honest. Bottomless pancakes sound pretty good right now. And a frozen chai latte, that would hit the spot. I'm thinking chocolate chip for the pancakes. Chocolate and maple syrup – it's a dynamic duo."

Tony looked at the guard expectantly.

"I couldn't say, sir."

"Uh oh." Tony dragged his bag up onto his knees and pulled out his cell phone. "You know we're in trouble when they start calling me sir."

"True." Gibbs peered through the window as the SUV navigated the morning rush hour, reading thruway signs in an attempt to get a sense of where they were headed.

Tony spoke into the phone. "Kort. The gorillas you left us with don't seem to realize that the next stop is breakfast at IHOP."

A pause.

"Really. And you think they're just as good as the International House of Pancakes?"

Tony pulled the phone away from his ear. "He hung up on me."

Ziva gave him a look that said she wasn't so tired that she couldn't still beat the crap out of him.

"Well," Tony said, "Kort wants you all to know that the cafeteria at Langely is excellent and we will most definitely be there long enough to try the pancakes."

Gibbs slouched down into the buttery leather seat, closed his eyes, and fell asleep – but not before he noticed that Kort's SUV wasn't going the same way as their own.

They were waved through Langley security and driven up to a nondescript side door, then pulled into the building and straight into showers. They hosed themselves down, put on hospital gowns, and got brief medical exams before putting their freshly laundered clothes back on. They met back up with one of their original guards at that point, who ushered them into a room with a mix of breakfast and lunch stuff set out on plastic trays – juice, coffee, pastries, sandwiches. No pancakes.

Almost two hours passed.

Ziva paced. Gibbs and Tony glared at the beige walls.

Finally the guards got a call, and the NCIS interlopers were summoned to their debriefing.


	27. The Nature of the Relationship

From the beige breakfast room they were ushered into a windowless gray conference room – a room in all ways featureless, really – and told that "the others" would be joining them shortly.

"The Others," Tony muttered. He traced his fingers along the length of the table, searching for recording devices. "Creepy Nicole Kidman with a severe case of mistaken identity. Let's hope the CIA isn't about to smother us with our pillows."

Ziva and Gibbs sat down silently and waited, still and expressionless, the definition of cool. It was Tony's turn to pace.

Kort showed up a few minutes later, wrapped in the same slick gray suit, a manila folder in hand. He slouched into a chair without a word and opened the folder, shuffling through the papers there intently.

He was going to ignore them.

Seriously?

"Well, as I live and breathe, Trent Kort!" Tony said enthusiastically. And continued with a very loud and unfriendly, "What the fuck are you doing?"

Kort turned his eyes away from whatever was in that folder reluctantly. "Waiting for your debriefing to start, Dinozzo." He raised his eyebrows. _And you?_

Tony stared at the man for a moment. Then he pulled out a chair across from him and sat forward, instantly serious. "Where are Gray and Mateo?"

Kort considered him, probably deciding what to divulge, the prick. Tony ground his teeth, hands curling into fists.

"Gray is completing the same medical exam that you just received," Kort said. "Mateo isn't your concern."

The agents focused sharply on Kort. That sounded an awful lot like an admission - that Gray _was_ their concern. It was more than any one of them expected.

Tony let that subject drop while he was ahead. There were plenty more to tackle. "Why don't you just tell us why you pulled Gibbs out of there?"

Kort smiled. Or maybe he was showing his teeth. "I didn't 'pull Gibbs' out of anywhere. Why, Dinozzo, having second thoughts?" He returned to the papers in his lap.

"Kort."

Tony sat back in his chair as Gibbs spoke up. The boss studied Kort calmly. "Why?"

There was no more pretense of Gibbs having intel on the Calera cartel. All of his new insight involved daily life while chained to a pipe in one crappy, out-of-the-way shack. Whatever the reasons behind the CIA's generosity, Gibbs' information wasn't it.

Kort continued to look at the file in front of him, fingering the edges of the pages as he turned them. "Several reasons," he said eventually.

Tony exchanged a glance with Ziva at the neutral response. Kort sounded like he was . . . open to giving them answers. Once again, more than they expected.

He would have reason to keep them happy - feed them information - if he needed their cooperation. But Kort and the Agency had the upper hand pretty firmly here already. Didn't they?

"Such as?" Gibbs pressed.

"You can undoubtedly figure them out."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. Why the game?

"His history with the Calera cartel," Ziva volunteered.

"Yes." Kort flipped a page dismissively and studied the next one in the stack. "Like thousands of law enforcement officers before him, Gibbs has a history with the Calera cartel."

"But you are looking for someone to join you against Londono and his cartel," Ziva probed.

Kort shrugged. "Possibly."

Gibbs frowned. Possibly?

What other reason -

Gibbs stiffened. The kid was the only remaining element in the puzzle, and also the biggest unknown.

"Training and experience in - ah, ops in Colombia." Tony offered. He meant to sound more aggressive, but he was still a little rocked on his heels by the fact that Kort was cooperating. Sort of cooperating.

The CIA agent sighed. "Yes indeed. Like tens of thousands of government servants around the world, Gibbs can fire a weapon, and even hit what he's aiming at."

Well, that was pretty dismissive of what Tony was fairly sure included highly specialized Black Ops experience on the boss's part. But. Point taken. Gibbs wasn't unique among CIA operatives on that score.

Gibbs considered the man thoughtfully. One part of the equation was Gray, apparently. But why Gibbs?

Kort had specified "law enforcement officers" and "government servants" when he dismissed Tony and Ziva's guesses. So it wasn't either of those – it wasn't professional. It was some personal asset, or maybe a trait the CIA was looking for. Beyond some pretty good carpentry skills he only had one standout personal asset.

"My team."

Kort flipped through a yellow pad of paper and twisted the cap off his pen. "Very good, Gibbs. Your team is . . . illustrative."

Tony frowned. "But you don't want us. You want him . . . You want Gibbs because he knows how to pick a good team?"

Gibbs snorted. His agents didn't appear to notice.

"Not because we are good," Ziva said slowly. "Many teams are good. Because we are . . . ah, willing to bend the rules?"

Kort glanced up and smirked. "Hardly a distinction of note at the CIA. Though we have nothing on Mossad, do we?"

Ziva didn't even blink at the dig. "Because we are loyal?"

Kort started to write on the pad, saying nothing.

That was it? Or at least one of the reasons.

Gibbs watched as Dinozzo made one of those dizzying intuitive leaps - the ones he had no idea he was famous for. But he was, at least in Gibbs' book. He'd never seen anything else like it.

"You want Gibbs to make someone - to make Gray loyal? To _recruit_ him?"

Tony was horrified by the notion, though he knew he didn't really have to worry. Gibbs would never do it -

Kort's lips twitched in a wholly mocking manner. "Does it look to you like Gray needs to be recruited, Dinozzo?"

Well, no. And yet Kort hadn't denied - "But it's about the kid?"

There was some hesitation, covered by shuffling papers, and then, "Gray is a valuable asset in the region." Kort's delivery was sales pitch smooth.

That was a _yes_.

Gibbs propped his chin in his hand and raised an eyebrow at Tony and Ziva. "I earned your loyalty, in case you forgot. Whatever the end goal is, Kort and the Agency want someone who _is_ loyal." Gibbs studied the man across the table from him. "Someone the kid will trust."

Kort flipped back through the file notes in front of him. "While that is essentially true," he said distractedly, "you give me a little too much credit. And the Agency far too much."

Kort's scalp actually tingled, the weight of three stares falling on him. The wheels of three investigative minds grinding away in the stark silence.

"Gray was the one - the kid picked me?"

Kort paused in his review of the papers in front of him and finally looked up to meet Gibbs' gaze. He settled back in his chair, abandoning the file for the moment. "I suggested candidates for . . . what may be required. Scores of them, actually. But yes, he chose you." Over my strong reservations, was clear in the tone.

"Required – what for?"

"That will either become clear in time or will not be an issue," Kort said, vague but firm.

So . . . Gray had some potential use for Gibbs down the road. Maybe.

In the meantime, Gibbs would definitely be another well-placed enemy of the Calera cartel, with fantastic motivation to bring it down. But, as Kort had pointed out, he wasn't unique on that front.

"Why me?" Gibbs pressed. There were plenty of competent people out there who were trustworthy. A lot of them would also be younger and less cranky. And almost certainly less likely to require rescuing from a dangerous drug lord's jungle.

Kort searched Gibbs face. "You really don't know?" he said finally. Probing.

Still the man insisted on the game. Would he be asking if he knew? Gibbs glared back at him.

Kort' gaze returned to the pad of paper in front of him without really seeing it, absently rotating the silver pen in his hand. "Well, that is unfortunate," he said softly. "As I've no idea."

Tony sat forward, thinking he'd misunderstood. "What?"

Kort shrugged. "I don't know why he chose you. I advise, but Gray makes his own decisions. Originally we didn't want to go with anyone in law enforcement," he smirked. "The boy isn't particularly a fan. And certainly not someone so upstanding - your many virtues are the most dangerous thing about you, Gibbs." Kort tapped his fingers on the yellow pad, thoughtful. "You weren't really in the running. And then you were his top choice. He must have uncovered some piece of intelligence to tip the scales." Kort's pale eyes ran over Gibbs, languid but sharp, as if trying to figure out what that something could possibly be.

"And you have no idea what it was?" Tony pressed, disbelieving.

"No."

"How can he have that much freedom on the CIA leash? You people count the zits on an informant's ass on any given day."

Kort drew the pad to him and began to write again. "You misunderstand the relationship, Dinozzo. Gray has no ties to the CIA."

They were silent for a long moment, the scratch of Kort's pen loud in the soundproof room.

"Excuse me?" Ziva, incredulous.

"He provides information occasionally, to me, on the situation in Colombia. There is usually some compensation, through me, from the CIA. That's it. He has no ties to the Agency." Kort smirked briefly at Dinozzo. "It's not that we've already recruited Gray. It's that 'recruiting' him is not possible. He's proven remarkably adept at staying out of the CIA's clutches."

Gibbs studied the man across from him, wondering exactly what he was playing at. Kort spoke as if it wasn't obvious that he himself must be responsible for keeping the kid out of CIA hands.

It was _Kort_ that Gray was tied to.

Whatever the connection between Gray and the CIA operative, Gibbs didn't buy that it was some neat exchange of intel for favors. It was personal. Kort was protective of Gray. Even, incredibly, seemed to trust him. That was interesting. Before this day Gibbs would have guessed that Kort trusted no one.

But that web of relationships didn't really matter, not at the moment.

"This stunt was a hell of a lot more than sharing information," Gibbs noted impatiently.

"Yes. The Caleras are becoming more powerful."

Well, no kidding. That wasn't exactly informative. Even Kort's slipperyness wasn't quite slippy enough to cover up the enormous holes in his half-assed explanations.

"And the reconnaissance he was doing, on the way in and out?" Gibbs' voice was hard, recognizing the gaps and going after the biggest ones.

Kort glanced up, then back down at his pad. Considering how to answer? "Occasionally the CIA paves the way for him to obtain information that we want," Kort acknowledged. "The Agency's official presence is kept to a minimum in that region due to the political complexities of the situation. We rely on local sources like Gray."

Local sources? As far as they knew the kid lived in DC. Gibbs grit his teeth and jumped to another topic. 'General sources of information' didn't get background on federal agents. But Gray had seen their files. 

"He said he read my file."

"Classified sections with the exception of your mission in Colombia were redacted, but yes." Kort shuffled the papers he was looking at and spoke distractedly once more. "Your family history was not what tipped you over the competition, if that is what concerns you. Not even the section that was so conveniently . . . lost. Written up and then forgotten by an Agent Macy, I believe?" Kort's soft mocking was barely audible over the pages he was flipping through. "Personally I have Paloma Reynosa's interest in forensics to thank for bringing it all to light. She's become quite a crusader for justice."

Beside him Gibbs felt Tony and Ziva stiffen. Kort and Gray, if the CIA agent was to be believed, knew not only about Gibbs' family but also the entire truth about the Hernandez murder.

Kort sensed the tension and looked up, considering Gibbs' flat blue stare curiously. "Frankly I found the lost bits to be the ones most in your favor. But whatever swayed Gray didn't come from your file, or from me. It was some other source."

And with that the man dismissed Pedro Hernandez as irrelevant.

Gibbs flexed his jaw as he digested that. In itself, the crime he committed didn't bother him anymore – he'd lived on the knife edge of that discovery for too long already, waiting to be exposed. But there was something like relief there, when they'd finally come and dragged him back to Mexico to pay for it. If Gibbs had gone to trial it would have been the only part of all of it that was fair. Or at least the way it was supposed to be. Shannon and Kelly got nothing like fairness. Hernandez never faced justice - Gibbs destroyed him before the man ever knew what hit him. And now it seemed Gibbs would never face trial either.

He found he didn't really care, one way or another.

But it didn't feel good for the kid to know that part of his past. For Gray to be aware of that side of him. Hell, he didn't like that his agents knew it. He wasn't ashamed of what he'd done, exactly. But he wasn't proud either. At nineteen he'd been trained by his country as a sniper, and that training had only one purpose. Was it possible for an act of such permanent violence to be both right and wrong? When was it one, and not the other? He didn't have the answers to those kinds of questions. Matters of life and death had never inhabited neat black and white morality for him. Instead they seemed to hover forever in an impenetrable gray fog, where easy answers were damn hard to find.

Either way, Hernandez's death was long done, and Gibbs felt no regret for it. Now it was just an ugly thing for a boy to know about a cop, no matter what else the kid had seen of ugliness in the world. Right or wrong, it was the sort of dark knowledge that children are protected from. Or ought to be.

It felt strange for others to know about his family and the life that he'd left so far behind him. For Kort of all people to read about them in some dusty file . . .

"And the fact that Gibbs was kidnapped by the Caleras was the icing on the cake, huh? Your top pick needs rescuing that only you can provide?" Tony said darkly. "Happy coincidence."

Kort quirked an eyebrow, amused at the suggestion. He had arranged for Gibbs to be kidnapped, just so that Gray could go in and rescue the man?

"The mystical powers you assign to me are flattering, Dinozzo, but no. I was for dropping Gibbs from the running when he was snatched by the Reynosas. And then the Caleras. You do know how to piss people off," Kort muttered. "Risk versus reward, Gray was in greater danger than any of you out there. And Gibbs is also on their radar now. You're visible, a liability." He locked eyes with Gibbs. "And you're too scrupulous to be relied on, aren't you? As I've already told you, Gibbs wasn't among my top choices."

Kort was silent for a few moments, then shrugged. "Gray considered my objections but insisted on at least offering to go after you. Somehow you convinced him you are reliable without ever meeting him," he said irritably.

Kort glanced at all three agents before returning to his file, but the challenge in his voice was still clear. "Perhaps he thought your sense of honor would make the risk worthwhile. Since you owe him." The challenge tipped into something of a threat toward the end. _He better be right_.

Gibbs clasped his hands in front of him and considered the man across the table. Kort didn't often give real information away, but he had there. _Gray was in greater danger than any of you._

How was that even possible? And if the danger was so great, why come after him at all? Gibbs turned that around in his mind.

You're too scrupulous to be relied on, Kort said.

Whatever they'd want from him would be dirty, or right on the edge of it.

The "too scrupulous" bit wasn't exactly true, though Gibbs could see why Kort might think it was. Hell, even his own team seemed to think that. McGee with his sister. Abby with her stalker. Even Dinozzo and his undercover assignment. Now Ziva and . . . whatever was lurking there.

Maybe he was too much of a hardass for people to come to him with their mistakes. Too much of a bastard perfectionist for anyone to imagine he would forgive them, or continue to accept them on his team. When the skeletons did float to the surface, though, Gibbs knew that he stood by his people. Even if they themselves didn't always believe it.

But Gibbs understood as well as anyone could that yesterday's mistakes don't necessarily make you who you are today.

The door opened then and three men in ties and a woman in a suit walked in, followed by Gray. The CIA people took seats toward the head of the table, the kid sat next to Kort, and the meeting began.


	28. Debrief

The NCIS agents' eyes followed Gray as he crossed the room and sat next to Kort. He looked alright.

The youngest of the CIA analysts powered up a laptop and removed a panel from the middle of the table to reveal a hub of wiring. He connected the computer to the room's network while the more senior official, sitting at the head of the table, did the introductions.

"I'm glad to see all of you here in one piece." He was older than Gibbs, but still robust and muscular, with wiry gray hair and smooth mocha skin. "Gray, I understand you were injured. Are you comfortable enough to proceed?"

"I'm fine," Gray said.

"Alright." The man turned to Gibbs. "Agent Gibbs, welcome home."

Gibbs nodded, squelching the desire to point out that he hadn't actually gotten home yet.

Little lines crinkled up around the official's eyes, as if he could read Gibbs' mind. "Thank you for bearing with us for this debriefing." He nodded to Dinozzo and Ziva, but kept his gaze on the team leader. "It's a policy designed to protect people, as well as information."

"I'm familiar with debriefing protocol," Gibbs said.

"Yes. I've reviewed your file. You and your agents are comfortable?" He looked Tony and Ziva over, honestly appearing to be . . . nice. "Can we get you anything before we begin?"

The agents shook their heads.

"Alright then. Let's get started. The CIA has been monitoring the activities of the Calera cartel for decades. There's been an uptick in activity and influence over the last few years and it seems the Caleras will now be of interest to NCIS as well. Agent Gibbs, I've spoken with your director and he has agreed to a policy of shared information between our agencies. My team will be furnished with your reports regarding this incident." CIA Boss smiled wryly. "Once you have a moment to write them, of course."

Gibbs and his agents nodded, faces perfectly bland. The CIA would have wanted them to write up their accounts on the spot. Vance must have put his foot down.

"Frankly, we don't have any similar intelligence to share with you. We have no agents within the Calera organization at this time and we keep contact between our people and the Caleras at a minimum due to the region's complicated political climate."

CIA Boss shrugged at Gibbs' scowl. "The Calera cartel is powerful on many fronts, Agent Gibbs. They've been incredibly useful on the political scene and in the civil war. The United States and Colombia are not willing to openly risk that support."

Gibbs could feel his soul hollowing out just listening to that crap. He shuddered to think what it would be like to work with the mindset every day. "Right. The justification for supporting corrupt politicians and murderous gangs." Gibbs set his shoulders. "I'm familiar with the reasoning. You can move on."

Tony and Ziva tensed, prepared to have Gibbs' back even if it was just around a conference table.

"It's a frustrating situation," CIA Boss said smoothly, "with no easy solution. I understand in '92 you were the principal sniper in a mission that killed the top three in the Calera organization. That mission was part of an effort that successfully crippled the cartel for a good ten years. That is the kind of movement that we are exploring here."

"That's classified," Gibbs said stiffly.

CIA Boss glanced around the table. "Everyone here has the clearance necessary, or can be read into the op," he dipped his head toward Ziva and Tony.

Gibbs glanced pointedly at Gray and back to the CIA supervisor's eyes. "I disagree."

The cool gaze never left Gibbs. "Gray has already been read into that portion of your file."

"Well that's unfortunate, since reading him into a classified operation constitutes involving him in it. And that would obviously be a war crime."

Everyone at the table shifted subtly to stare from Gibbs to the resolutely calm man at its head.

CIA Boss sat back in his seat. "His knowledge of that history is a war crime. And what do you call his actual involvement in rescuing you from the Calera camp?"

"A much more serious crime."

Tony and Ziva glanced at Gray. He followed the conversation with dull, disinterested eyes.

"If that were true your own agents would be complicit in it," CIA Boss pointed out.

"I'm well aware of that."

CIA Boss abruptly got up and walked over to the side table, pouring coffee from a silver carafe into one of the dark mugs grouped next to the milk and sugar. "I tend to agree with you, Gibbs, on both counts. Of course, depending on your interpretation of international law and CIA mandate, the mission you carried out in '92 was illegal too, regardless of the age of the participants."

Gibbs shrugged. "Technically illegal, maybe. But sanctioned. And necessary."

"Ah. A crime is acceptable to you if it is deemed necessary." The man swirled a spoon in his coffee and didn't pause for an answer. "And you have decided Gray's presence here is not?"

"I haven't been told anything to indicate that it is," Gibbs said steadily.

CIA Boss sat back down. "You don't consider your rescue to have been necessary."

"Obviously not." Gibbs' voice was curt.

"Hm. Well, I'm telling you now. His presence here is necessary."

Gibbs raised his eyebrows. Unimpressed.

CIA Boss raised his own. "Intelligence on the ground in the area around Camp Six is scarce. The same can be said for much of this organization's activities, as well as the identities and movements of its leaders. At this stage, any source of information is crucial to our efforts to get a handle on a cartel that is shaping up to be a serious threat in the drug war and dangerous to the political and social stability of the entire region."

Tony huffed a little at that. _Shaping up_ to be a serious threat? The thugs had their own army, for god's sake.

"I never said he isn't convenient." Gibbs spoke slowly, as if he thought the person receiving the words might be mentally deficient. "I'm sure he is. If exploiting children wasn't convenient we wouldn't need laws against it."

The man at the head of the table sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "Beyond our own interests, it has been made clear to me that Gray's involvement in these matters is the only way to actually ensure his safety, and the safety of his family in the long run. Is that sufficient for you, Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs looked from CIA Boss's patient face to Gray, who stared back at him pokerfaced. Or maybe the kid was just bored.

"That true?"

Gray nodded slightly.

Gibbs sighed. He doubted that putting a boy in danger was really the only way. But he didn't have all of the information here, and he knew he had hardly any of the power. He turned his eyes back to CIA Boss. "Fine. Let's get this over with."

"Alright. As I was saying, we will be looking over your reports and hope that you will share any new intelligence that you may come across concerning the gang's activities. In return we can make available to you, on request, satellite coverage of areas suspected to be used by the organization for its illegal activities. We will also make available any intelligence gathered by our agents, if it is deemed relative."

Tony huffed again.

"Fine," Gibbs said, indifferent. "I assume you want a rundown on how I got to the camp?"

"That would be a good place to start."

"Was knocked unconscious during the initial assault in Mexico. When I woke up I was on the floor of an SUV. After a few hours I was transferred to the hold of a boat. Boat was on the small side, maybe a forty footer. After two days at sea we anchored in a remote area. I was transferred from the boat to a small plane. The flight from the beach to the camp was about four hours. When I got to the camp I was transferred to the second floor of a shack. Six days later Gray climbed into the room."

Gibbs fell silent.

"Okay," CIA Boss said. "We've studied our coverage of the camp and don't appear to have caught your actual arrival there. Do you know what time of day it was?"

Gibbs thought a moment. He hadn't been able to see, but he remembered the sounds, and the sun on his skin. "It was day, not night. Not dawn and not evening."

"Your timeline would put you in the camp on . . . hm." CIA Boss turned to the young man sitting in front of the laptop. "Bring up the twenty-second, late afternoon."

An enormous flat screen descended from the ceiling a few feet back from the end of the table, where no chairs were set. A satellite image of the camp appeared, almost identical to the photograph that Kort had first shown Tony and Ziva less than two weeks ago.

The lone female anaylist spoke. "Close in on the airfield."

The crystal clear image focused on the airfield. She used a lazar pointer to indicate a section. "Here."

The photo pulled in again, showing a small plane with amazing clarity. Tony could see individual blades of grass growing up through a crack in the tarmac by the wheel.

"Could this be the aircraft?" the woman asked.

"Could be."

"How many flew with you?"

Gibbs paused. "I counted three. Could have been more."

"Would you be able to identify any of them?"

"I had a hood over my head, so no, not by sight. Maybe one of them by voice."

CIA Boss spoke up. "Pull out again."

The full photo of the camp reappeared.

"Were you interrogated while you were there?"

"Not really."

"And that means . . . what, exactly?" the supervisor probed.

"I didn't get the impression they were serious."

All four CIA officials looked at Gibbs incredulously. Finally CIA Boss nodded. "Well, we have the medical report of your injuries from the doctor who treated you. But you're right. Their lead interrogator hadn't yet arrived. Would you be able to identify any of the men who questioned you?"

Gibbs shook his head. "I only saw the faces of the guards in the shack."

CIA Boss nodded. "By voice, were any of them women?"

"No."

"How many were there? Interrogators, I mean?"

"Two."

"Would you be able to identify their voices?"

"Probably."

"Did they know who you were?"

Gibbs shrugged. "Didn't seem to. I can't know for sure."

"Never used your name? Never mentioned NCIS or your activities in Colombia in the early nineties?"

"No."

CIA Boss nodded. "We suspect no one at the camp knew your significance to Londono. Keeping your presence quiet would protect him from accusations of kidnapping a federal agent. Of course, his secrecy may also have made your escape easier - no unusual security measures were put in place to imprison you. The effort to track you down once you escaped also seemed to be on the quiet end of the spectrum. If we didn't have the coincidence of his and his interrogator's arrival at the camp while you were there we wouldn't be entirely sure that he even knew of your capture. One thing we do know about Londono is that he's good at keeping his secrets secret."

Gibbs frowned. Londono was actually at the camp?

While the NCIS agents absorbed that, CIA Boss tilted his head toward the lead analyst, indicating she could move the meeting along.

"Bring up the twenty-ninth," she told the tech. "Do we have late afternoon?"

The photo on the screen switched out, replaced by one that looked identical at first glance. She leaned over the table to hand the pointer to Gray. "If you could outline your route."

He frowned at the clicker for a moment and then pointed the beam of light at the screen, circling one point at the perimeter. "In through the main gate, here." He moved the pointer toward a small building. "Waited there till dark."

"Hold on," CIA Boss broke in. "I understand you bought a pass into the camp?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

Gray glanced at Kort, who shifted slightly to meet the kid's eyes but was otherwise motionless. And silent.

Apparently communication via ESP worked for them. After a moment Gray turned back to CIA Boss. "I located someone outside the gates who had a pass."

"Someone you knew?"

"Yeah."

"And the price?"

Gray looked to Kort again. The agent nodded slightly.

"Five hundred in US and a location."

The man sitting next to CIA Boss flipped quickly through the papers in front of him, finally running a finger down one of them. "You haven't indicated on this list which one might be compromised."

"Didn't put it on the list."

CIA Boss and his more youthful cohort looked up at Gray, surprise etched on their faces. The three of them stared at each other silently for a long moment. Gibbs smiled a little, on the inside anyway. Gray didn't back down for anyone.

"Any other fields you failed to mention?" the analyst scowled.

Kort spoke up. "None that are significant."

"That would be a yes."

"Of course there are more," Kort returned sharply. "He couldn't have swept them all if he had a month. Moving on?"

The analyst turned his gaze to Kort. He looked too shocked to speak. Or, judging by the red flush creeping over his face, it was possible he was too angry.

He seemed about to blow when Ziva broke in. "Excuse me, but what fields are you discussing?"

CIA Boss glanced at her and waved a hand. "Let's move on. That second location at the camp, where you waited for nightfall. That's a storage shed of some kind?"

"Yeah."

"Storing what?" the woman asked.

"Maintenance for the trucks and planes. Parts and tools."

CIA Boss smiled a little. "Any of them worth more than scrap metal by the time you left?"

"Probably not."

That got an eyebrow from Gibbs. Sabotage?

"Then what?"

Gray swept the pointer over several of the larger buildings. "After dark, to the hangars."

The official with the incomplete list of fields spoke up again, still snide. "And is the list of equipment there complete?"

There was a pause like the room itself took a breath. Gray turned his head deliberately, looking at the man as he had not looked at any of the rest of them before.

Oh, Tony thought. Uh-oh.

The motion of Gray's head drew all the focus in the room. It was slow and sharp, like a snake, like a bird of prey. And when he smiled, fake and cold, it was the relaxed grin of a predator. "As far as you know," he said.

Tony had thought from the beginning that Gray didn't like the NCIS team. That he was just barely tolerating the agents for some reason, some personal gain, that they weren't aware of yet. They'd spent days in the jungle together after all, and unless he was delirious with fever the kid hardly spoke to them. It seemed obvious at the time that the kid wasn't a fan. He could see now, though, that Gray didn't really have a problem with him or Ziva or Gibbs. Not a serious one anyway. Compared to the look he was giving the CIA suit, he'd been bosom buddies with NCIS from the get-go.

Gibbs watched the scene carefully. Gray wasn't just standing his ground here – he was hostile. It was one of the rare moments he'd seen him display any emotion at all, if hostility could be called an emotion. The CIA analysts didn't seem to care too much about the cold attitude and sarcasm. And why would they? The kid was obviously a gold mine of information. Just as much gold as information, if Gibbs understood that byplay about the fields.

The woman cleared her throat and spoke up again. "Most of the trucks left the hangars after your escape but didn't get more than a few miles. None of the aircraft even left the bays. Are they permanently disabled?"

The NCIS agents shifted to stare at Gray.

"Not permanently. If so many of them hadn't broken down at once they probably wouldn't have noticed it."

The woman nodded. "Worn fuel lines and such?"

"Yeah."

"Ans that's why we didn't meet many patrols on the way out," Tony said lightly.

Gray's eyes slid over Dinozzo's as he turned back up to the screen.

"Then to the guard houses." He ran the pointer over a line of small buildings. "He was in . . ." Gray studied the line. "This one. Two guards on the lower floor. Cut the power and waited for one of them to step out to fix it. Went in through the upper window, disabled the interior guard. Waited for the second to reenter and disabled him." His pointer swept back. "From the guard house to the hangars –"

The woman frowned. "Disabled? Could you be more specific?"

"Tranqed."

The woman continued to look at Gray, confused. "I'm sorry?"

"He shot them up with tranquilizers," Gibbs spoke wryly from the other side of the table.

"Oh," she blinked. "So. Back to the hangars?"

"Where I met with our ride out. Then back to the guard house to wait for the truck."

CIA Boss shuffled some papers. "Your ride out. This would be . . . Mateo's father?"

"Grandfather," Kort corrected.

Testy CIA spoke up again, still testy. Man had all the self-preservation and social skills of a fruit fly. "Anything else for Mateo's grandfather?"

Gray looked at him again, face so expressionless it was actually creepy, until the suit shifted uncomfortably. Then the kid leaned forward a little, seriously, like he was about to share a really good secret. "Sure you want to know?"

Testy CIA's face edged a bit more toward apoplectic. He opened his mouth but was cut off before he could speak.

"Another field?" CIA Boss sighed.

Gray nodded, eyes still locked on the analyst, as if he didn't want to miss the show. The analyst, unable to help himself what with the fruit fly brain, sat forward with a hiss. "You don't have a clue - some of those fields are worth a million a piece!"

The kid grinned caustically. "You know, I think that one was actually closer to ten mil."

"CIA assets aren't yours to hand out!" CIA Asshole exploded. He was red in the face now, hands jerking through the air. "We didn't clear any payments for your little – "

Gibbs tuned the words out and watched the man calmly. More than ready to intervene if Asshole actually lost it and made the first millimeter of a move. Not that Gibbs thought it likely he would get physical . . . unless you counted the little flecks of spit making their way across the table toward Gray. That was way more physical than anyone would ever want to get with this guy . . .

Though it would be satisfying to have an excuse, take a swing . . . Gibbs would hit him just below the jaw, right hook into the soft undercarriage of his skull. Or straight in the mouth, that would be good, take out a few teeth . . . then again, this had been a fairly extensive daydream and the guy was still yapping. A jaw wired shut might be just the thing. So a one-two combo, right-left, watch the knuckles on the teeth . . . 

He'd have to move fast, if he had a hope of beating Ziva to it. A glance to his right showed her eyes had narrowed into what were, in his experience, lethal slits, and she'd subtly rebalanced her weight, ready to spring.

Fortunately - or unfortunately? - their services weren't required.

"Would you shut up, Hogan?" Kort's derisive voice was just as bored as it always was, only louder, to drown out the other man's rant. "Nothing on Calera land is a CIA asset. Unless you were hoping to end up with a few personal assets? Is that your angle?"

Asshole – Hogan, apparently – turned to Kort furiously. " _You_ accuse _me_  – "

Tony was really hoping for a fist fight, but CIA Boss finally looked up from his papers at that point. "Hogan, simmer down. Kort, don't use Hogan's name in front of guests. You know how it makes him nervous."

CIA Boss peered over his reading glasses to sweep the table with his gaze, making eye contact briefly with the NCIS agents and Gray. "I apologize. They get a little cranky before lunch. You were saying, Gray?"

Gray shrugged, cool as ever. More than immune to Hogan's glare, and indifferent to the tacit approval of the man's anger, given how long that rant was allowed to go on. "I waited with Gibbs at the guard house for the truck. We left through the main gate, met up with the other agents."

Silence.

"That's it," the kid said.

Not exactly. Gibbs glanced between the thus-far rational woman and CIA Boss. "Do we know who was in that helicopter?"

The woman looked to her boss and back to Gibbs when the man nodded. "Yes. Roberto Londono, one of his interrogators, and several bodyguards. I'd say you got out of there just in time."

Tony sat forward, glancing from Kort to the woman. "We were told Londono doesn't go to the camps."

"Very rarely, these days. Seems he made an exception for Gibbs." CIA Boss looked back down at his file. "Perhaps killing his adoptive family pissed the man off."

"Great," Tony grunted, and sat back again in his chair.

"On the other hand," the man continued, "he didn't have you outright killed when he had the chance, or even tortured, much. Any idea why, Agent Gibbs?"

"No."

"Information from prior missions that he might be after?"

"Not that I'm aware."

"Hm." CIA Bossed stared at Gibbs.

Gibbs stared right back.

"Turning back to the helicopter." CIA Boss shifted to peer over the top of his specs, pinning Tony and Ziva to their chairs. "That machine met a spectacular end. You intentionally shot at it with . . ." The man glanced back down at his papers. "An IMC-40 grenade launcher?"

The two of them looked at each other quickly, figuring out who would speak.

"Yes," Tony said, since he was the senior field agent. And his citizenship status wasn't quite so . . . new.

"And the labs?"

"That was accidental," Ziva spoke up. She had been the one doing the shooting, after all. "We chose the guard tower as a primary target and the helicopter as a secondary. One shot went wide and hit a lab."

"Well," CIA Boss said neutrally, if with a little sigh, "you put a dent in their operations for a short time, anyway." He turned to the tech guy. "Bring up the day after."

A new photo came up, blurring and refocusing as the tech closed in on the labs. The charred remains of the guard tower and helicopter were both visible, along with what was left of the smoke-blackened buildings. The chemical fires must have been flash burns, big explosions that burned out quickly, since the buildings were still intact.

Gray had been silent up to that point unless asked a question – his default behavior when he wasn't manipulating agents, as far as Gibbs could tell. Now Gray turned and said something into Kort's ear.

Kort spoke up. "That's an afternoon shot?"

"Yes," the woman this time. "It's the clearest we have. Earlier images are obscured by smoke and some cloud cover."

"I want copies of anything you have from earlier in the day."

Asshole snorted and twitched in his seat.

The woman glanced at her boss, who looked up from his papers at Kort. "You know we aren't allowing pictures of that camp to leave the building. What's on your mind?"

Okay, Tony thought, eyes sliding from CIA Boss to Kort. Two things here. First of all, Kort had given them, his NCIS nemisis team, a photo of that camp. And Kort knew that McGee and Abby had images too. Apparently that was Not Approved. Saying something was not to leave the building was a pretty serious barrier, not something you screwed around with. But Kort had screwed with it, and risked CIA wrath to do so. Either Kort was hoping they would never find out just how Not Approved it was or he was trusting them not to screw him over with the knowledge. Which would be _very_ weird.

Second, CIA Boss was being _nice_ to Kort. That was definitely weird. Kort was acting like the same arrogant prick in here that Tony had observed him to be everywhere else. Why was CIA Boss being nice?

Kort didn't hesitate. "Fine. We'll review them here. After the debrief."

CIA Boss's gaze moved from Kort to Gray. "Mind telling us what you're looking for?"

Silence, for a beat too long. Finally the kid tilted his head and said, "Want to see how much damage the fire did."

CIA Boss had the patience of Buddha.

He didn't say anything. Just looked at them, Kort and Gray, and waited. Probably for reasoning that didn't smell quite so obviously of bullshit.

Gray and Kort stared blankly back, patient too, in a calculating way. They were hunters after all.

The three of them sat there like they were prepared to play chicken for hours.

"He's looking for the dead," Gibbs said.

"The dead?" the woman said blankly.

"Bodies would have been pulled out first. They must have been cleared entirely by the time this photo was taken," Gibbs nodded at the screen. "Since there aren't any there."

A strange heaviness washed over Tony, disorienting and total, like opening your eyes to discover you were moving underwater. "You think there were people in there? It was 0100."

A beat of silence that Gibbs stepped in to fill. "Those labs never close, Dinozzo."

CIA Boss tapped his fingers on the papers in front of him. Then he shoved the file forward a bit so that he could rest his elbows on the table and lean toward Gray. He spoke earnestly, even though the kid's attention never left the screen on the other side of the room. Gibbs gave the guy points for at least making an effort at sincerity. "Gray. We can give you time to go through images after the meeting if you prefer. But it's often valuable to share information with the group as a whole. That's why we insist on debriefing together."

Gray's pale eyes flicked from the screen to CIA Boss, over to the NCIS agents on the opposite side of the table, and finally landed on Kort. He shrugged.

"He's waited almost a week," Kort said, low and irritable. "If we can just get it over with?"

CIA Boss nodded and raised his eyebrows at the woman. "Well," she said uncertainly, "we don't have constant surveillance in place over the area. But we do have hardcopy of this sector at regular intervals . . ." She pulled a thick binder out of her briefcase and handed it to Kort, who passed it on to Gray. "The day in question is the 1200 series."

The photos were marked with numbers at the bottom. Gray flipped to the right section and went through them one by one, glancing at each before turning them over rapidly. Eventually he paused and pulled a photo off of the stack, pushing it back toward the woman. He pulled the next photo, the next – four more, then closed the binder and shoved it back to her.

Gibbs noted that the kid's hands were still creased with stubborn ground-in dirt, the kind that burrowed in after a hard week out there, and didn't come off unless you were willing to take the skin with it. His own hands were just the same.

The woman looked the pulled photos over briefly and made note of the numbers before handing the images to the tech. He called them up from his digital cache and zoomed into the quadrant of the camp that held the labs. In this image the shells of two of the buildings were still smoking heavily and the light was a little gray, even in the context of the black-and-white picture. It must have been close to dawn. The wind was pushing the smoke south, and along the northern edge of the destroyed lab there were rows of dark smudges.

Kort spoke up again, voice clipped. "This will be easier if Gray can manipulate the view himself. Unless you want to be here for hours?"

"Sure." CIA Boss stood up. "Gray, why don't you switch seats with me. You can direct our tech here to whatever you want to examine more closely."

The two switched seats and Gray pointed silently to the screen of the laptop. Up on the plasma the image narrowed in on the smudges, again and again, and then again, until their faces began to emerge. The image scrolled across the first row, pausing on each upper body before moving on, the only sound in the room the keystrokes of the tech as he manipulated the picture. Some were burned terribly, but most seemed to have died from smoke inhalation or the shock of the explosions, their faces and clothes blackened but intact.

**x**

Ziva would not let herself look away from the remains. It had never occurred to her that civilians would be in the labs in the dead of night. No light had seeped from them . . . but then, there were no windows in the structures. If there were, perhaps the people on the screen in front of her would still be alive. As the faces scrolled before them the reality of what they had done seemed to sink like a sickness into her bones.

She didn't need to put it into words - Ziva looked at Gibbs, and he knew what she was asking. "They were probably locked in, got trapped." His voice was calm and very low, and it seemed faint over the buzzing in her ears. He paused. "They restrict movement around the labs to keep people from stealing the merchandise."

The tech went through every face, then returned to four that Gray pointed out. Two of the images clicked back and forth several times, from the pixelated face to a wider shot that included the bodies next to it. Using the surroundings as some kind of scale to estimate height, Ziva thought. It was likely from the difference in size that the smaller of those corpses was not fully grown. Many of the workers were women or rather young. Perhaps the men were more usually in the fields.

Finally the image pulled back completely and moved to another, obviously taken sightly later. The rows had grown. There was less smoke in this picture, but the wind had shifted to the west and some of the bodies were obscured by clouds. Gray began again with the new corpses, and the table watched the gray faces of the dead flow by.


	29. Free

They realized Gray was done when he stood up. CIA Boss and the kid switched seats again, but before he sat down the boss hesitated. "Anyone like a break?" He eyed Tony and Ziva, but no one spoke.

Gibbs had taught his team to do the job, no matter what, and right now the job was this meeting.

"I suppose we'll continue, then. Anything significant to the larger operation about the remains from the fire, Gray?"

Gray was either thinking about not answering at all or taking a long time to organize his thoughts. "Weren't any guards, that I could see," he said finally. "Was all workers."

CIA Boss moved on. "We understand you were separated at one point, the NCIS agents captured by a patrol. Was there anything of note before that? Agent Gibbs, would you like to pick up the narrative?"

Gibbs hesitated, strangely. Tony and Ziva glanced at him quickly. Gibbs didn't hesitate.

"We came across a two-man patrol not far from the camp," he said. "Agent David went in as a diversion and Agent Dinozzo and I approached from behind. There was risk of detection by other patrols if we used firearms, so we took them by hand."

"And the guards?"

Gibbs kept his gaze on the CIA Boss. But he could sense Gray's eyes, looking at him.

It was ridiculous, feeling uneasy about killing two men after the grotesque parade of death they just sat through. But he was.

"We didn't get to them fast enough," Gibbs said. "They saw David." Could have provided a description of her. It seemed obvious that Londono had a grudge against Gibbs, but no one else on the NCIS team – as far as the cartel knew – had been dragged into it.

CIA Boss nodded, accepting Gibbs' reluctance to spell it out. "And then?"

"Nothing until we ran across the larger patrol."

"Right. If you would describe that incident?"

Gibbs talked, steadily, pretty much more than either of his agents had ever heard him say all at once before.

"We were single file in a trench, high bluff on the right. Ambush, eight men, M4s all around, one machine gun. Gray went into the brush to the left. We were disarmed and taken back up to a truck on a road, maybe two miles out. Four hours in, they stopped and dropped two of the men. Drove on until sunset, stopped for the night at a clearing. Chained us to the truck. Patrol camped by a river, outside the clearing. Gray took two guards by the truck with a knife and was wounded. The last of that fight was loud enough to be heard by the rest of the camp. Gray took cover outside the clearing, took two guards that came up from the camp. Swung around to the camp and the remaining pair of guards." Gibbs readjusted his shoulders a little, like he was checking to be sure his posture was still ramrod Marine. It was. "Despite being wounded he led us to safety and called for the bird back to your base the next night. If he was eligible I would recommend him for the Medal of Honor for that action. We didn't meet up with anything else on the way out."

The CIA people didn't understand the significance of that sermon. Its length or its quiet praise.

CIA Boss just nodded and flipped through some images in front of him. "Were you recognized by the patrol?"

"No."

"How about you, Gray?"

"No."

"But there are two guards who separated from the patrol and presumably made it back to Camp Six. They'll have identified all of you." CIA Boss nodded toward the agents.

"No."

They looked at Gray, and CIA Boss's eyebrows went up fast. "No?"

"I took care of them. As Gibbs says."

"They're dead?"

"Yeah."

They all took a moment to adjust to that. Two more. Gibbs actually felt a physical tightening in his chest, something black clawing at his heart.

"Okay. That's good news for Agents David and Dinozzo, at least." CIA Boss frowned. "I am surprised the guards weren't keeping a closer watch on their prisoners, since they knew one of the group was unaccounted for."

The man waited, looking at Gray and Gibbs and Kort, but it was Ziva who finally spoke up. "They did not consider him to be a threat."

CIA Boss glanced sharply at her. "And you know this how?"

"The guard who went after Gray and the leader of the patrol discussed it when they first caught us. Gray was not carrying a rifle or any other visible weapon. The rest of us were heavily armed. Because of his youth, they assumed that he was not armed at all. Gray also apparently left us behind. The patrol speculated that he was not really part of our group. They thought he was a local boy we hired or bribed as a guide, or forced into our service."

"Hmm." CIA Boss thought that over.

The agents were confused by his confusion. What other explanation could there be? Did he think that the patrol had recognized Gray and let him go? That Gray then came back and slaughtered them all anyway?

"There is also the fact that we were in a truck," Tony said, voice flat. Ziva did this sort of thing effortlessly, at least she seemed to, from where Tony was sitting. She always had. But his own head felt strange, out of control, like a rubber ball careening down an empty street - still reeling under the weight of dead faces.

CIA Boss encouraged Tony to go on. Tony cleared his throat, shoved the horror away, and came back to himself. Back to the surreal reality of life goes on, for some at least, played out in a colorless conference room, the total opposite of the jungle. Even the arguments here were clean, bloodless. And yet life there laughed and bled and died by the whim of men gathered here, or in rooms just like this one. 

And Tony was one of those men now, no denying that. He buried it, deep and fast, and swung back to to the present. To all its beautiful distractions.

"I guess you aren't curious about this," he said, "since you haven't asked. But Gray was on foot. We were in a truck. We weren't exactly hitting Autobahn speeds, but we were going faster than feet go, especially through terrain like that. Unless the guards were in on the secret too, whatever that secret is, they wouldn't have expected him to be able to catch up."

"Ah." CIA Boss smiled a little. "Good point. We have some imagery from NCIS here that may help to clear up that mystery for you."

More shuffling.

"Gray appears on these screen shots of Calera land as a sort of blue cloud. Apparently you were . . . infused with low-level radiation?" CIA Boss turned to Gray.

Gray looked at Tony and quirked an eyebrow.

"A completely harmless isotope that we could track but would be undetectable to anyone searching for a bug. A safety measure for our youngest recruit." Tony smiled brilliantly.

CIA Boss frowned down at the photos. "That's . . . interesting. I haven't seen a similar method employed here. Would be a great method of tracking unfriendlies," the man mused. "A bug they couldn't see or get rid of. Of course, if the Hague found out you were irradiating people without their consent, they'd invite you for a visit and never let you leave."

He smiled briefly at a frozen Tony and went back to his pictures. "These images show Gray taking to one of the waterways immediately after your capture. The river is a more direct route to where you ended up, if you follow the right branches. And of course, in that kind of terrain a good swimmer will move even faster than a good runner." He glanced up at Gray. "Presumably you knew where the river would meet up with the road?"

Gray just looked at him. Kid was quieter than Gibbs on a quiet day.

"You then left the river to follow the road? Moving rapidly on foot. Tracking the men that split off from the group, looping back to the truck . . . You should go out for track, Gray."

Kort made an odd sort of snorting sound, a choked-off laugh. Gray grinned at him, cold eyes transformed in that instant to something entirely different.

Gibbs chalked another emotion onto the tally. They'd just shared an inside joke, apparently. Whatever it was, Gray thought it was funny.

Meanwhile, Tony was shuddering in actual, honest-to-god horror. "You swam in that? And nothing ate you?"

Gibbs' eyebrows knit together. "I thought the waterways were too exposed for travel." It was a little absurd to be concerned, when everything was over, that the route hadn't been safe. Still.

Gray shrugged. "They are, for you. But I'm not a threat."

Right. The kid told him before, but Gibbs hadn't understood it then. _Más seguro, sin_. Safer without the rifle. It's what kept Gray off the radar of that patrol.

The man at the front of the table leaned back in his chair and stared into nothing for a minute, turning the pen that he held but never used over and around in his hands. Then he focused on Gray.

"We're grateful that you went back for the NCIS agents and were able to free them. But I know you were encouraged not to engage. To withdraw if you were discovered by a patrol."

The agents' eyes flicked to Kort. His face was back to its normal distain, all traces of humor gone.

"And I happen to know you haven't gone out of your way to help people trapped in that jungle before. I'd like to know why you did this time around."

Gray returned the man's gaze steadily, and the silence stretched. It looked as if he wasn't going to answer. And then . . . he shrugged, as if it was no big deal. "Agent Gibbs and I had a heart-to-heart," he said.

CIA Boss frowned at the cryptic answer and turned his keen gaze to Gibbs, hoping for more. "Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs shook his head and shrugged innocently. No clue.

CIA Boss narrowed his eyes, but closed the folder in front of him. "Alright. Well, if there's nothing else, I think we're done here. Again, we may be in touch to follow up on details in your reports, when we have them."

The man was about as subtle as the alligator Tony was sure would eat _him_ if he ever went swimming in the Amazon. Seemed the CIA wanted those reports yesterday.

"Agents Gibbs, Dinozzo, David - our men can escort you to your homes or to an NCIS safe house, if you prefer. I believe your director would like to see you tomorrow, after you've had a chance to rest."

Dinozzo and Ziva slumped in relief, and Tony took a moment out of his day, right then, to bless Leon Vance from his great bull head down to his probably bully toes. They could go home.

CIA Boss smiled, tell-tale eyes crinkling. "Thank you for bearing with us. Welcome home."

Kort and Gray were up from their seats and out the door like twin shots. It was the last the agents saw of either of them for months.

Gibbs followed, almost as fast.

When he got home he found a thin brown envelope with the CIA seal sitting on his work bench, 'Londono' scrawled across it in familiar black lettering.

A gift – another one – from Kort.

There were also four shiny new bottles of bourbon, lined up on the tabletop like soldiers on parade. From the team, he guessed. But why four?

Gibbs shook his head, poured himself a mugful, and drank it down. He stared at the folder, thinking ominously on one of his father's favorite sayings.

' _There's nothing in this world that's free._ '


End file.
